this blog is the continuation of a genuine mystical tradition, unless you get in daily contemplative time and abstain to a significant degree from "entertainment" then you are just wasting your time and mine !
i think if i ever had any experience with infinity as a child, it was when i was flying on a plane to portugal. what i remember is that i was just sitting there, and suddenly everything opened up. i felt the skies around me as we were flying through.
i think you wrote something along the lines of if you've won something, it can be unwon. that's how i feel writing this. doesn't explain what i felt.
when i write here, i don't write from infinity. i'm pretty lost, but changing my diet and the supplements are helping i think. living on long island, new york it's hard to get outside because it's all grey. can't even go to the beach, i got a ticket in the summer because i was sitting on the beach with my friend past 11pm.
I watched a cool movie recently about impressionistic painting called Local Color. It was a very good film if you ignore the countless unnecessary cussing. It had some very good quotes on the nature of the artist and creativity, and it also criticized the progressivist movement in art as being shallow and talentless. I can't tell whether my teacher's artwork is good or not.
Also, here's the stuff I wrote about the brain and experience:
http://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/2x74y1/panprotopsychism_and_zen/ - this is more theoretical physics
also if you decide to watch the film, it's better to find subtitles because the Russian impressionist artist is hard to comprehend due to heavy accent. It's also based off a true story and points to the importance of solitude for creative spontaneity
In short: reality is inherently experiential, all the way down, but it is not rendered conscious until there is a functioning brain that provides intentional states. To quote Steven Shaviro in his article "Panpsychism And/Or Eliminativism", "Everything is mindful, or has a mind; but this does not necessarily entail that everything is given or manifested to a mind." This resembles the Buddha's message in Buddhahood Sutra. The question, "Is the moon still there when I am not looking at it?" is only a failing strategy to preserve Platonism or philosophical idealism: it is, in fact, only half a question, the other half being: "Am I still there when the moon is not shining?"
intentional states are emergent (what Emily Dickinson refers to as Mind in her poem) but not sensory/experiential ones (what Emily Dickinson refers to as Experience in her poem)
intentional states just render the sensory/experiential states conscious
So everything is experiential, all the way down, but intentional states (i.e., higher order thought) renders it conscious, thereby collapsing the wave function.
I think Science is close to understanding enlightenment now.
Enlightenment is the alignment of all stars, of immense superposition.
Lmao everything is so boring to read now dude (WELL MOSTLY) I also mean like all these people talking on audio or video clips just listening to anyone I'm sick of it S O B O R I N G ! People also write like this on twitch.tv with S P A C I N G My GOD!
I'm just writing my own bullshit everyday now and that's pretty exciting sometimes
Like do I have to keep going to someone to read, like forever tryna understand something but not LOL E V E R Y D A Y
Well I still do but that pool is getting smaller and smaller and pretty soon I'm just gonna say fuck it I think LOL
I like observing everything now even cities just like.... Usually I don't even see shit like all of a sudden there's a building or a fucking tree and I'm like wow I didn't see that before which is pretty fucked I think.
I'm watching clips about and reading about Robert Anton Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7N6TOFyrLg
TALKIN BOUT THAT... tuning into shit and stuff, like... that's the only shit we know or notice, like... and just because we haven't tuned into anything then like that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Also he mentioned a scene in the movie The Edge where one of the characters mentions that you can make fire from ice to cheer him up or some shit
That made me think about when I was out and about and I heard the cracking of the trees in the dead of winter FREEZING COLD and it reminded me of fire, the way fire cracks trees too, the sound...!
I DON'T KNOW I'M RETARDED AND BRAIN DAMAGED AND I DON'T GIVE A FUCK lol
Concussions I'm pretty sure mostly and some bad dieting. Oh well whatever. I don't mean to say whatever but I'm not really doing anything about it.
SO maybe you just look him up
I am emulating an3drew and twitch.tv with the spacing of the letters. Fuck I hate when more than one person does something it makes me emulate them.
that seems like something cool to do and i try make similar plans to live but I think I'm done son game over I can't do this just a desire but i'm held back by the same shit everyday can't break through and make changes dayum shun
A friend of mine, who is a Yoga teacher, gave me this article: https://yogainternational.com/article/view/the-hidden-culprit-thyroid-imbalance-and-what-to-do-about-it - it's from a doctor who decided to self-heal his thyroid problems. Check it out if you have some time, I wonder what's your take on his advice? A lot of it seems to be good advice (selenium from brazil nuts, vitamin D, iodine), basically the same stuff you talk about! He also discusses the reason for the sudden upsurge of thyroid problems nowadays.
Sorry, I posted it before I read the whole thing. The last part where she talks about Chinese Medicine and yoga is not something that interests me. I don't believe in traditional/alternative medicine. What doesn't pass double blind tests is bound to be placebo magic.
That's what I will do, try things in small doses, as you say. I will also try to expose myself to the sun more, at least 20 mins a day, and get more physical exercise. I'm also trying a small spoon of coconut oil a day, I've read about its great health effects. I just put melt a small spoon of it in my morning coffee.
Something that came to my mind while reading your poem. We say that schizophrenics "hear voices". That creates a false dichotomy though, doesn't it? Because we all hear voices. There's a video that tries to show us how schizophrenia looks like, from the inside (first person perspective): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWYwckFrksg
Insanity / sanity are really on a continuum; it's a spectrum it's not a binary switch. Each of us hears voices; we just don't pay as much attention to them, or we are very skilled at dismissing them, they are manageable. The inner monologue we take to be our self is really schizophrenic in itself. It's really a complex algorithm that creates it, an amalgamation of past impressions, desires, bodily needs, recursive obsessions, etc.
Some writers like Joyce and Beckett used this psychotic dimension as a source for their art. Between the two, I prefer Beckett. Compare the above schizophrenic video with the play called Play by Beckett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCAnZxUy6Qc ... that same self-generating language-game algorithm at play.
I think that by being in contact with other people, we absorb their thoughts or their blabber and then it becomes one sub-voice in our mindstream, it is included in that algorithm. So really that inner voice is a choir. Perhaps that's what the Greek chorus in the dramas really is/was?
A Zen master once said, I don't remember which one, "you're mistaking a thief for your own son" - yeah, that's what it really boils down to, doesn't it? I mean this whole thing I'm talking about in this comment.
The thing is, as soon as I say: "I have identified the thief" - this is already not the genuine thing. It's a "parallelism" like you told me before. It mimics the genuine thing so that the genuine thing cannot express itself. In a parasitic fashion, it feeds off the genuine to project an ersatz insight.
The only insight I got from staying in the temple was how fucking crazy the phenomenon called "monkey-mind" really is. It can't be noticed in a noisy environment though. It really seemed the whole zazen thing was merely a device that exposes that craziness. All I could hear was the incessant blabber of that internal voice. And in the context of silence and solitude, it really shows its schizophrenic colours.
But then the question is: if even my own mind cannot be trusted, then what can be trusted, what can be relied upon?
In order to answer that question, we already need to use the mind. And then history, tradition, is replete with a breathtaking selection of candidates: Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, science, truth, God, philosophy, mathematics ...
The question is: what can be relied upon, considering the unreliability of my own mind?
It's good to repeat that question because I believe it's an especially productive one.
The answer seems apparent, and it's already here. It is that which crucifies me, it is that which crucifies my mind, that is to be relied upon. And yet this "relying" doesn't guarantee any sort of Happiness.
It's just that we can learn to enjoy the crucifixion of our own minds?
Sawaki had a good aphorism:
"Being watched by zazen, cursed by zazen, blocked by zazen, dragged around by zazen, every day crying tears of blood – isn't that the happiest form of life you can imagine?"
I think we can replace "zazen" with any other thing that does the crucifying of the mind! It needn't necessarily be zazen. Other than that, I believe it's a good aphorism and it goes right to the core of the matter!
I think the comment I wrote above is one of the best I have ever written. However, it's still not the genuine thing; it's still parallelism. What you wrote in the last post: it is ABOUT something, instead of BEING that something. As I said before, the monkey-mind creates an ersatz critique of itself in order to maintain its existence intact.
It's kind of like watching Hollywood movies criticize Hollywood or buying an anti-capitalistic T-Shirt of Che Guevara, not realizing how the content doesn't really matter, it's the action, the performative dimension that assures continuity! Anti-capitalism sells!
This is really the same endtimer manifesto I keep writing and rewriting all over. If you look at me or Sepehr we are really writing the same comment over and over again.
However, in time, and with age, one can crystallize the formula, one can formulate one's own contradictoriness in a clearer, minimal fashion.
I really don't believe in planned progress or change! I believe one gets older though. And one gets tired. And one cares less.
The proximity of death, health problems etc. also tend to move things, things that previously seemed immovable.
nvm, idc about the question of consciousness anymore. All I know is it makes me feel unconscious. I'm just going to start a poetry and art-house film blog.
I've been trying to understand how the brain's activity relates to the mysterious irradiance permeating the entire universe to no avail... When I was working in lab, I confronted someone who argued life is not a reflection of something deeper because all of our experiential content is spurious and reducible to brain activity. I argued with him, but he couldn't understand. When I had to kill rats, I felt a dread of what he said is true, and now, I want to just renounce this life in order to live on of solitude in natural scenery and read poetry or something to get to the bottom of the answer. People like Adi Da are frauds who sell a positive "feel-good" message to people, and I want to figure it out for myself.
I question whether image-like, episodic memory really is stored in the brain sometimes. The ending of Zerkalo seemed to point to the possibility of a deeper underlying reality inextricably tied to our memory, but I don't know. I think Henri Bergson may have been right, but I'm not sure either. I got into Neuroscience out of an existential need for this answer but it just leads to more questions and perplexities, especially in relation to Zen.
i think if i ever had any experience with infinity as a child, it was when i was flying on a plane to portugal. what i remember is that i was just sitting there, and suddenly everything opened up. i felt the skies around me as we were flying through.
ReplyDeletei think you wrote something along the lines of if you've won something, it can be unwon. that's how i feel writing this. doesn't explain what i felt.
when i write here, i don't write from infinity. i'm pretty lost, but changing my diet and the supplements are helping i think. living on long island, new york it's hard to get outside because it's all grey. can't even go to the beach, i got a ticket in the summer because i was sitting on the beach with my friend past 11pm.
Andrew, what do you think about the artwork of my past teacher?:
ReplyDeletehttp://michaelellistonart.com/index.php/portfolios/2014
I'm curious.
a good example of why zen has collapsed ! :o(
DeleteHis artwork is not that good ?
DeleteI watched a cool movie recently about impressionistic painting called Local Color. It was a very good film if you ignore the countless unnecessary cussing. It had some very good quotes on the nature of the artist and creativity, and it also criticized the progressivist movement in art as being shallow and talentless. I can't tell whether my teacher's artwork is good or not.
Also, here's the stuff I wrote about the brain and experience:
http://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/2x74y1/panprotopsychism_and_zen/ - this is more theoretical physics
also if you decide to watch the film, it's better to find subtitles because the Russian impressionist artist is hard to comprehend due to heavy accent. It's also based off a true story and points to the importance of solitude for creative spontaneity
DeleteEmily Dickinson argues for the same thing, Andrew:
DeleteExperience is the Angled
Road
Preferred against the
Mind
By - Paradox - the
Mind itself -
Presuming it to lead
Quite Opposite - How
complicate
The Discipline of
Man -
Compelling Him to
choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain -
http://www.edickinson.org/editions/1/image_sets/236222
In short: reality is inherently experiential, all the way down, but it is not rendered conscious until there is a functioning brain that provides intentional states. To quote Steven Shaviro in his article "Panpsychism And/Or Eliminativism", "Everything is mindful, or has a mind; but this does not necessarily entail that everything is given or manifested to a mind." This resembles the Buddha's message in Buddhahood Sutra. The question, "Is the moon still there when I am not looking at it?" is only a failing strategy to preserve Platonism or philosophical idealism: it is, in fact, only half a question, the other half being: "Am I still there when the moon is not shining?"
http://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/2x74y1/panprotopsychism_and_zen/
Emily Dickinson argues this too.
I mention the Emily Dickinson poem here with the intersections with quantum physics and Zen:
Deletehttp://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/2wid8p/can_we_formulate_panpsychism_such_that_it_doesnt/coxesrs
intentional states are emergent (what Emily Dickinson refers to as Mind in her poem) but not sensory/experiential ones (what Emily Dickinson refers to as Experience in her poem)
intentional states just render the sensory/experiential states conscious
So everything is experiential, all the way down, but intentional states (i.e., higher order thought) renders it conscious, thereby collapsing the wave function.
I think Science is close to understanding enlightenment now.
Enlightenment is the alignment of all stars, of immense superposition.
http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/andrew/pending_poems131.html#o neill elliston
DeleteLmao everything is so boring to read now dude (WELL MOSTLY) I also mean like all these people talking on audio or video clips just listening to anyone I'm sick of it S O B O R I N G ! People also write like this on twitch.tv with S P A C I N G My GOD!
ReplyDeleteI'm just writing my own bullshit everyday now and that's pretty exciting sometimes
Like do I have to keep going to someone to read, like forever tryna understand something but not LOL E V E R Y D A Y
Well I still do but that pool is getting smaller and smaller and pretty soon I'm just gonna say fuck it I think LOL
I like observing everything now even cities just like.... Usually I don't even see shit like all of a sudden there's a building or a fucking tree and I'm like wow I didn't see that before which is pretty fucked I think.
I'm watching clips about and reading about Robert Anton Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7N6TOFyrLg
TALKIN BOUT THAT... tuning into shit and stuff, like... that's the only shit we know or notice, like... and just because we haven't tuned into anything then like that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Also he mentioned a scene in the movie The Edge where one of the characters mentions that you can make fire from ice to cheer him up or some shit
That made me think about when I was out and about and I heard the cracking of the trees in the dead of winter FREEZING COLD and it reminded me of fire, the way fire cracks trees too, the sound...!
I DON'T KNOW I'M RETARDED AND BRAIN DAMAGED AND I DON'T GIVE A FUCK lol
Concussions I'm pretty sure mostly and some bad dieting. Oh well whatever. I don't mean to say whatever but I'm not really doing anything about it.
SO maybe you just look him up
I am emulating an3drew and twitch.tv with the spacing of the letters. Fuck I hate when more than one person does something it makes me emulate them.
I don't think I'll ever write poems I'm so bad at them but I can still write shit heh
DeleteSliding into disillusionment yet still writing...
ReplyDeleteWho me or you I can't help it there's nothing else to do nothing I can do! WHAT ABOUT YOU?
DeleteLife is like a Chekhov story. Always a bitter sweet ending you can't put into words, but the real men do the impossible of putting it into words...
ReplyDeleteI've lately been like the Underground Man from Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground. I think most of the Zen scene has become like this.
ReplyDeleteShoutout to Dave St.Germain for shaking things up lol
ReplyDeleteyeah appreciated.
Deleteprobably was easy for him to call sepher out considering he's unmarried and lives in a nice outdoorsy place.
Deletethat seems like something cool to do and i try make similar plans to live but I think I'm done son game over I can't do this just a desire but i'm held back by the same shit everyday can't break through and make changes dayum shun
DeleteHaha. Yeah, I don't want to marry anybody. That would be game over, man!
DeleteBut that doesn't mean relationships aren't important or helpful or great. It's just that the whole "family life" thing is such a different dynamic.
I open the door, step into the woods, and God winks. It's hard to be open to that if you have to worry about supporting a family.
As for sepher, I think he has a congenital problem with listening to people. He's like talking to a trampoline.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteA friend of mine, who is a Yoga teacher, gave me this article: https://yogainternational.com/article/view/the-hidden-culprit-thyroid-imbalance-and-what-to-do-about-it - it's from a doctor who decided to self-heal his thyroid problems. Check it out if you have some time, I wonder what's your take on his advice? A lot of it seems to be good advice (selenium from brazil nuts, vitamin D, iodine), basically the same stuff you talk about! He also discusses the reason for the sudden upsurge of thyroid problems nowadays.
ReplyDeletezakaj "her" thyroid problems ! :o)
Deletethe problem with brazil nuts is the amount of selenium in them varies hugely and the form is not much use, i only recommend the dual seleniums !
http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/links/compendium/myminerals.html#selenium
copper helps, but ether you need it may depend on wether you drink water coming through copper piping !
supplements are all about balance !
http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/links/compendium/copperandzinc.html
Sorry, I posted it before I read the whole thing. The last part where she talks about Chinese Medicine and yoga is not something that interests me. I don't believe in traditional/alternative medicine. What doesn't pass double blind tests is bound to be placebo magic.
DeleteThanks for the informative reply!
DeleteI guess my situation is not so bad yet, there's no urgency, but I need to think about the long term.
Deletethe thing is to just try things in very small doses, it's really a process of years to fine tune what you do and take
Deleteyou do actually have a moderately severe problem, that's what the ultra sound scan says !
my thryoid function has never been great, with supps i survive ! :o ()
That's what I will do, try things in small doses, as you say. I will also try to expose myself to the sun more, at least 20 mins a day, and get more physical exercise. I'm also trying a small spoon of coconut oil a day, I've read about its great health effects. I just put melt a small spoon of it in my morning coffee.
DeleteSomething that came to my mind while reading your poem. We say that schizophrenics "hear voices". That creates a false dichotomy though, doesn't it? Because we all hear voices. There's a video that tries to show us how schizophrenia looks like, from the inside (first person perspective): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWYwckFrksg
ReplyDeleteInsanity / sanity are really on a continuum; it's a spectrum it's not a binary switch. Each of us hears voices; we just don't pay as much attention to them, or we are very skilled at dismissing them, they are manageable. The inner monologue we take to be our self is really schizophrenic in itself. It's really a complex algorithm that creates it, an amalgamation of past impressions, desires, bodily needs, recursive obsessions, etc.
Some writers like Joyce and Beckett used this psychotic dimension as a source for their art. Between the two, I prefer Beckett. Compare the above schizophrenic video with the play called Play by Beckett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCAnZxUy6Qc ... that same self-generating language-game algorithm at play.
I think that by being in contact with other people, we absorb their thoughts or their blabber and then it becomes one sub-voice in our mindstream, it is included in that algorithm. So really that inner voice is a choir. Perhaps that's what the Greek chorus in the dramas really is/was?
A Zen master once said, I don't remember which one, "you're mistaking a thief for your own son" - yeah, that's what it really boils down to, doesn't it? I mean this whole thing I'm talking about in this comment.
The thing is, as soon as I say: "I have identified the thief" - this is already not the genuine thing. It's a "parallelism" like you told me before. It mimics the genuine thing so that the genuine thing cannot express itself. In a parasitic fashion, it feeds off the genuine to project an ersatz insight.
The only insight I got from staying in the temple was how fucking crazy the phenomenon called "monkey-mind" really is. It can't be noticed in a noisy environment though. It really seemed the whole zazen thing was merely a device that exposes that craziness. All I could hear was the incessant blabber of that internal voice. And in the context of silence and solitude, it really shows its schizophrenic colours.
But then the question is: if even my own mind cannot be trusted, then what can be trusted, what can be relied upon?
In order to answer that question, we already need to use the mind. And then history, tradition, is replete with a breathtaking selection of candidates: Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, science, truth, God, philosophy, mathematics ...
The question is: what can be relied upon, considering the unreliability of my own mind?
It's good to repeat that question because I believe it's an especially productive one.
The answer seems apparent, and it's already here. It is that which crucifies me, it is that which crucifies my mind, that is to be relied upon. And yet this "relying" doesn't guarantee any sort of Happiness.
It's just that we can learn to enjoy the crucifixion of our own minds?
Sawaki had a good aphorism:
"Being watched by zazen, cursed by zazen, blocked by zazen, dragged around by zazen, every day crying tears of blood – isn't that the happiest form of life you can imagine?"
I think we can replace "zazen" with any other thing that does the crucifying of the mind! It needn't necessarily be zazen. Other than that, I believe it's a good aphorism and it goes right to the core of the matter!
I think the comment I wrote above is one of the best I have ever written. However, it's still not the genuine thing; it's still parallelism. What you wrote in the last post: it is ABOUT something, instead of BEING that something. As I said before, the monkey-mind creates an ersatz critique of itself in order to maintain its existence intact.
DeleteIt's kind of like watching Hollywood movies criticize Hollywood or buying an anti-capitalistic T-Shirt of Che Guevara, not realizing how the content doesn't really matter, it's the action, the performative dimension that assures continuity! Anti-capitalism sells!
This is really the same endtimer manifesto I keep writing and rewriting all over. If you look at me or Sepehr we are really writing the same comment over and over again.
However, in time, and with age, one can crystallize the formula, one can formulate one's own contradictoriness in a clearer, minimal fashion.
I really don't believe in planned progress or change! I believe one gets older though. And one gets tired. And one cares less.
The proximity of death, health problems etc. also tend to move things, things that previously seemed immovable.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Deletenvm, idc about the question of consciousness anymore. All I know is it makes me feel unconscious. I'm just going to start a poetry and art-house film blog.
Deletesepehr my reply
Deletehttp://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/andrew/pending_poems131.html#sepehr sacrifice
I've been trying to understand how the brain's activity relates to the mysterious irradiance permeating the entire universe to no avail... When I was working in lab, I confronted someone who argued life is not a reflection of something deeper because all of our experiential content is spurious and reducible to brain activity. I argued with him, but he couldn't understand. When I had to kill rats, I felt a dread of what he said is true, and now, I want to just renounce this life in order to live on of solitude in natural scenery and read poetry or something to get to the bottom of the answer. People like Adi Da are frauds who sell a positive "feel-good" message to people, and I want to figure it out for myself.
ReplyDeleteI question whether image-like, episodic memory really is stored in the brain sometimes. The ending of Zerkalo seemed to point to the possibility of a deeper underlying reality inextricably tied to our memory, but I don't know. I think Henri Bergson may have been right, but I'm not sure either. I got into Neuroscience out of an existential need for this answer but it just leads to more questions and perplexities, especially in relation to Zen.