I had an interesting conversation w/ my brother on the telephone last night, in which, in addition to discussing yi quan and xing yi, we batted back & forth our ideas of what the differences between the Orient and Occident really were. (I'm using the terms Orient vs. Occident instead of East vs. West because it makes the regions more clear -- we weren't including, for example, the Turkic or Russian worlds.) I told him about my Zen teacher's statement that the West parameterizes things in terms of time while the East parameterizes things in terms of space, and Russ proposed that the Occident is primarily underpinned by philosophy, specifically that there should be a philosophy for everything. For example, the question "Is punk dead?" harrows the souls of people who would otherwise just listen to music and get stoned, not the kind of folks you normally think about tagging with the term "philosopher". We have sports-ology, musicology, even ology-ology. He proposes, and I agree, that this stems from the fundamental question of the Occident: "What happened?", with it's inherently narrative basis. He further proposed that perhaps the fundamental question of the Orient is "What's up?". It seems to me that while "what's up?" sufficiently avoids the narrativity of the Occident, it doesn't fully capture why the Orient is so much more concerned with function over mechanism and correllation over causality. So instead I'd like to humbly proffer the following fundamental question of the Orient:
How does all of this stuff relate to each other, or, what does this have to do with that?
This also helps to explain how the Orient was able to come up with the Buddhist insight, aka "what do you mean other?" "Other" makes perfect sense within a narrative hermaneutic, but from the perspective of interbeing and relation it only makes sense as a working assumption, one that rapidly falls apart upon examination. Also interesting (perhaps only to me?) is that two out of three of my theological guideposts, namely the doctors John of the Cross and Catherine of Sienna (but not Thomas a Kempis, or, at least not in Imitation of Christ, which was the principle work of his I followed), in naming God "WHO AM" point directly at an interessential hermaneutic, albeit not the one the Buddhists derived from their Hindu forebears. It raises an interesting extra-credit question:
How much of Buddhist practice & philosophy is not only compatible with, but in direct accord with Catholicism?
If, as Karl Rahner said, God is, among other things we may know nothing about, the Fundamental Ground of All Being, where "All Being" is inherently singular, then working to understand the non-duality of nature is part and parcel of seeking to understand creation. Given how Buddhist practice, by helping one to directly perceive non-duality, is very helpful for following the second Great Commandment, someone who, unlike me, has any faith at all to speak of, might be able to make good use of it as a part of their Christian, um, practice? uh, behavior? uh, whatever you'd call it. Not as I do, with "hmm, the 2nd Great Commandment is cool, that should be included", but as a real Christian aught, with this part of a fully God-centered, worshipful program.
20 comments:
Once again, the Westerner's response..... "duh..."
:)
(thus why we look at people like they're out of their minds when the nutjobs propose that science is contrary to God...)
I would like to comment in an interesting manner about this completely-over-my-head posting.
But I can't.
So um.. Let's all have some pie!
Once again the reply: sure, it's duh in theory, but what of praxis?
"Know thyself."
Ah Russ, I see you remain blissfully free from any taint of humility.
As a pat answer requiring no actual effort or understanding, "know thyself" is at least a little better than smugly answering "duh" to a "how to" question, and, while it's certainly in the Mitchell tradition of bandying about bumper-sticker certainties like so many unread gospels, you should really know better -- that's the type of answer I would have expected from Madame Volk. Sit down and have some pie, and may I recommend the humble variety?
nyaa nyaa
Sorry to pee in your cornflakes... wasn't the intent... but come on: the fact that the Buddhists have a really kick-ass tool for doing it, doesn't mean that nobody else was trying to do so as well...
by the way, if I have acknowledge smilies in your posts, it works both ways: check the smiley attached to the "duh" comment...
Smiley in "duh" post duly received. Smiley in "know thyself" not duly received, therefore post taken seriously.
Not taken as cornflake peeing, but a wrong answer on the heels of a duh (and lacking a smiley) deserved to be called out. And I'm cranky w/ you because you're communicating as arrogant again. I pretty much think that the West's tools for this are a complete and total failure. The only real tool that could come close is the prayer of silence, but by the time you can really do that, your frame of reference is so dualistic that it won't achieve the objective.
Won't achieve the directive as perceived from outside the directive?
I'm fine with you saying I'm wrong... but I think you're criticizing water polo because the goalie doesn't move two squares up and one over while hopping over other players... tons of Buddhist practice is directly in accord with Catholic teaching. But wiping away the concept of duality is simply not a goal. The goal is to keep the two Great Commandments. Insofar as one slowly knows oneself and knows reality and the whole shebang (I'm using western terms here, obviously), one begins to approach a greater love of God. GoBuddhism, for picking up a tool that westerners don't even know how to handle. Insofar as Buddhist practice potentially enlarges one's capacity for being compassionate to others, GoBuddhism!
But until something pops up that convinces the western world that causation is not the primary factor of existence, outside of the Unmoved Mover... the west at large will never make non-duality priority.
btw, I wish you had internal links... there are times when I'd link you, but would have to do the whole blog...
I'll put them in.
As to the other thing, you're right, Buddhism & chess are different, but that's why I boldfaced the second question: how much is compatible?
I'll direct Anna here. Remember her translating the book on that very topic?
Nope; may I buy a vowel?
Okay guys, let me put it this way: it was six years ago. Besides, translating something does not necessary mean I understood what was said. When you translate, the only thing you pay attention to is that a. your sentences make sense as they are, and b. that one sentence does not contradict the preceding one. I only could do one-two pages at a time, if you recall, Russ, because, frankly, Father Gilbert's writing made my brain hurt...
Being is a difficult term for the Occident, and attempts to come to terms with Being begets an entire realm, namely first philospohy, or metaphysics.
For example:
Is being static, active, or something else?
Can one reconcile being and becoming, and are there other senses of being besides these?
Can one reconcile quiddity, individuation and existence?
Your extra credit question calls to mind _Zen Catholicism_ by Dom Aelred Graham.
What's quiddity? I've never heard the term before, but I sure like it from an alliterative perspective! :)
Quiddity is perhaps best known as the 'whatness' of a thing.
It is that set of qualities or range of 'accidents' that make something what it is. In Platonic terms, it would be the evidence of participation in a particular form. In Thomistic terms, quiddity closely corresponds to essence
As -- Buddhists would call that "suchness", if that also incorporated not just the accidents, but the force of its incorporating those accidents.
The force of incorporating accidents, i.e. the implied verb, or the action of being, is somewhat elusive in Western thought. Aristotle comes close to it when attempting to describe an analog of the soul. "If the eye were an animal, sight would be its soul." "Eyeness" might be more appropriate, especially that active principle that makes the eye an eye, and resists being or becoming something else.
There is a word in Delaware (which is clearly neither Oriental nor Occidental) that might correspond as well: essopuw, which is something like "be" and "move" and "consist of", where their respective meanings are incorporated into each other. It's an active intransitive verb.
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