Quasi memory

I have an accurate quasi-memory of a past experience if
(1) I seem to remember having an experience,
(2) someone did have this experience,
and (3) my apparent memory is causally dependent, in the right kind
of way, on that past experience.

Personal Identity Lectures at Yale (on personal identity)

Discussion of personal identity, by Shelly Kagan at Yale (Body Theory). Watch it!

What matters in personal identity?

What is Occupy Miami all about?

What is Occupy Miami all about? Pedro Santana, a young member of the movement, speaks.

What do you think?

The Dhammapada

D I: 1-20

1. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
2. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.
3. "He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me." Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.
4. "He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me." Those who do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.
5. Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.
6. There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die. But those who do realize this settle their quarrels.
7. Just as a storm throws down a weak tree, so does Mara overpower the man who lives for the pursuit of pleasures, who is uncontrolled in his senses, immoderate in eating, indolent, and dissipated.
8. Just as a storm cannot prevail against a rocky mountain, so Mara can never overpower the man who lives meditating on the impurities, who is controlled in his senses, moderate in eating, and filled with faith and earnest effort. 
9. Whoever being depraved, devoid of self-control and truthfulness, should don the monk's yellow robe, he surely is not worthy of the robe.
10. But whoever is purged of depravity, well-established in virtues and filled with self-control and truthfulness, he indeed is worthy of the yellow robe.
11. Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the essential to be unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential.
12. Those who know the essential to be essential and the unessential to be unessential, dwelling in right thoughts, do arrive at the essential.
13. Just as rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion penetrates an undeveloped mind.
14. Just as rain does not break through a well-thatched house, so passion never penetrates a well-developed mind.
15. The evil-doer grieves here and hereafter; he grieves in both the worlds. He laments and is afflicted, recollecting his own impure deeds.
16. The doer of good rejoices here and hereafter; he rejoices in both the worlds. He rejoices and exults, recollecting his own pure deeds.
17. The evil-doer suffers here and hereafter; he suffers in both the worlds. The thought, "Evil have I done," torments him, and he suffers even more when gone to realms of woe.
18. The doer of good delights here and hereafter; he delights in both the worlds. The thought, "Good have I done," delights him, and he delights even more when gone to realms of bliss.
19. Much though he recites the sacred texts, but acts not accordingly, that heedless man is like a cowherd who only counts the cows of others — he does not partake of the blessings of the holy life.
20. Little though he recites the sacred texts, but puts the Teaching into practice, forsaking lust, hatred, and delusion, with true wisdom and emancipated mind, clinging to nothing of this or any other world — he indeed partakes of the blessings of a holy life.
_____________
D II: 21-32

21. Mindfulness is the path to the Deathless. Carelessness is the path to death. The mindful die not. The careless are as if dead already. 
22. Clearly understanding this excellence of mindfulness, the wise exult therein and enjoy the resort of the Noble Ones. 
23. The wise ones, ever meditative and steadfastly persevering, alone experience Nibbana, the incomparable freedom from bondage.
24. Ever grows the glory of him who is energetic, mindful and pure in conduct, discerning and self-controlled, righteous and mindful.
25. By effort and mindfulness, discipline and self-mastery, let the wise one make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
26. The foolish and ignorant indulge in carelessness, but the wise one keeps his mindfulness as his best treasure.
27. Do not give way to carelessness. Do not indulge in sensual pleasures. Only the mindful and meditative attain great happiness.
28. Just as one upon the summit of a mountain beholds the landscape, even so when the wise man casts away carelessness by mindfulness and ascends the high tower of wisdom, this sorrowless sage beholds the sorrowing and foolish multitude.
29. Mindful among the careless, wide-awake among the somnolent, the wise man advances like a swift horse leaving behind a weak jade.
30. By Mindfulness did Indra become the overlord of the gods. Mindfulness is ever praised, and carelessness ever despised.
31. The monk who delights in carelessness and looks with fear advances like fire, burning all fetters, small and large.
32. The monk who delights in mindfulness and looks with fear at mindlessness will not fall. He is close to Nibbana.
_____________
D III: 33-43

33. Just as a fletcher straightens an arrow shaft, even so the discerning man straightens his mind — so fickle and unsteady, so difficult to guard.
34. As a fish when pulled out of water and cast on land throbs and quivers, even so is this mind agitated. Hence should one abandon the realm of Mara.
35. Wonderful, indeed, it is to subdue the mind, so difficult to subdue, ever swift, and seizing whatever it desires. A tamed mind brings happiness.
36. Let the discerning man guard the mind, so difficult to detect and extremely subtle, seizing whatever it desires. A guarded mind brings happiness.
37. Dwelling in the cave (of the heart), the mind, without form, wanders far and alone. Those who subdue this mind are liberated from the bonds of Mara.
38. Wisdom never becomes perfect in one whose mind is not steadfast, who knows not the Good Teaching and whose faith wavers.
39. There is no fear for an awakened one, whose mind is not sodden (by lust) nor afflicted (by hate), and who has gone beyond both merit and demerit. 
40. Realizing that this body is as fragile as a clay pot, and fortifying this mind like a well-fortified city, fight out Mara with the sword of wisdom. Then, guarding the conquest, remain unattached.
41. Before long, alas! this body will lie upon the earth, unheeded and lifeless, like a useless log.
42. Whatever harm an enemy may do to an enemy, or a hater to a hater, an ill-directed mind inflicts on oneself a greater harm.
43. Neither mother, father, nor any other relative can do one greater good than one's own well-directed mind.
_______________
D IV: 44-59  Flowers

44. Who shall overcome this earth, this realm of Yama and this sphere of men and gods? Who shall bring to perfection the well-taught path of wisdom as an expert garland-maker would his floral design?
45. A striver-on-the path shall overcome this earth, this realm of Yama and this sphere of men and gods. The striver-on-the-path shall bring to perfection the well-taught path of wisdom, as an expert garland-maker would his floral design. 
46. Realizing that this body is like froth, penetrating its mirage-like nature, and plucking out Mara's flower-tipped arrows of sensuality, go beyond sight of the King of Death!
47. As a mighty flood sweeps away the sleeping village, so death carries away the person of distracted mind who only plucks the flowers (of pleasure).
48. The Destroyer brings under his sway the person of distracted mind who, insatiate in sense desires, only plucks the flowers (of pleasure).
49. As a bee gathers honey from the flower without injuring its color or fragrance, even so the sage goes on his alms-round in the village. 
50. Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.
51. Like a beautiful flower full of color but without fragrance, even so, fruitless are the fair words of one who does not practice them.
52. Like a beautiful flower full of color and also fragrant, even so, fruitful are the fair words of one who practices them.
53. As from a great heap of flowers many garlands can be made, even so should many good deeds be done by one born a mortal.
54. Not the sweet smell of flowers, not even the fragrance of sandal, or jasmine blows against the wind. but the fragrance of the virtuous blows against the wind. Truly the virtuous man pervades all directions with the fragrance of his virtue. 
55. Of all the fragrances — sandal, blue lotus and jasmine — the fragrance of virtue is the sweetest.
56. Faint is the fragrance of sandal, but excellent is the fragrance of the virtuous, wafting even amongst the gods.
57. Mara never finds the path of the truly virtuous, who abide in mindfulness and are freed by perfect knowledge.
58. Upon a heap of rubbish in the road-side ditch blooms a lotus, fragrant and pleasing.
59. Even so, on the rubbish heap of blinded mortals the disciple of the Supremely Enlightened One shines resplendent in wisdom.

For extra credit! For this post on Occupy Miami: You are to visit the camping ground at Government Center and ask questions to inform your answer

MWF, 9am

MWF, 11am

TR, 9:50am

Leave your comment here.

T, 5:40pm

We've dwelt in the wrong place for too long

The above illustration, which is getting wide circulation in market-oriented blogs is posted by a John Hinderaker. Each arrow points to a distinctive well-known brand product. The illustration has the pedagogic aim of exhibiting the protesters' bad faith, which consists of wearing products made by the corporations they criticize. Hinderaker relishes the following platitude:

I've always wondered: where do people who don't like corporations work? Do they seriously want to turn the clock back by centuries –it would take some research to figure to how many– to a world in which the only forms of business organization are sole proprietorships and partnerships? And who do they think designs, manufactures and distributes the products they use? Elves? 

Hinderaker confounds "work," an essential productive human activity with "wage-labor," an economic category, as if the former was a sufficient condition of the latter. A more perverse conclusion of his argument is that since we're all consumers, we are forced to accept -even justify- corporative excess as a blessing. We should fall on our knees & thank Gap for the opportunity to purchase a pair of jeans at fair market price!

Additionally, we should be grateful for Gap's being-there, as it were, for as long it exists people will hold jobs. Is Hinderaker referring to those in the production-line in China or Indonesia, making $7 for a 12-hour day, or America's retail, where being a manager earns you $7.50 an hour without commission? In Hinderaker's bureaucratic paradise, people hold jobs not because they are competent at doing something. Rather, work becomes an undeserved gift bestowed on individuals by a corporate superstructure.  

Hinderaker's corporate genuflection is not surprising, but he distorts the real aim of this movement, which is not to denounce corporations for just being corporations, which is vapid, but to denounce corporate excess, i.e., unethical corporate-friendly legislation, unfair corporate tax breaks, irresponsible corporate deregulation and its dramatic aftermath: lack of opportunities, unemployment, the crumbling of American manufacturing and organized labor, urban blight, etc, etc.

(Hypothetically speaking, I don't have to thank Gap for the jeans I paid for, nor wearing Gap jeans renders me impotent to denounce Gap's unethical corporate practices).

 Occupying what?

To "occupy" may show a group's determination to seize possession of, and/or maintain control over a place. This is not done by force. It's a right enacted by the force of consensus. To put it simply: There is the real, public space where protesters camp (Zucotti Park, Miami's Government Center, etc), and there is an ideal space of freedom. One needs the other. "To camp" in the physical space happens because one already dwells in this ideal space. "To occupy" is to do both. Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Miami protesters redefine the rules of dwelling:

1- They now dwell "outside" for the sake of all of us. 2- Their place takes over -and opposes- Wall Street's "center." 3-  Their "occupation" makes for a primal event. What is it?

Wall Street is the "center" of the 1% that rules the remaining 99%. This brutal gap exposes financial capitalism's unfairness. Acting as a gate of capital flowmation into the periphery, Wall Street's inflowence erodes region, place and borders. It downgrades political space by reducing local government control and packaging whatever is left of the public sector as commercial venture. No wonder Occupy Miami has camped outside Miami's Government Center, an emblem of a democracy hijacked by the opportunistic strategies of capital.

Yeah. we've dwelt in the wrong place for too long!

I'm closing this post Sunday 23 @ 11pm.

Female genital cutting is ebbing

This is a welcome piece of news. Only after 92 million women have been infibulated.

The movement to end genital cutting is spreading in Senegal at a quickening pace through the very ties of family and ethnicity that used to entrench it. And a practice once seen as an immutable part of a girl’s life in many ethnic groups and African nations is ebbing, though rarely at the pace or with the organized drive found in Senegal. The change is happening without the billions of dollars that have poured into other global health priorities throughout the developing world in recent years.

Notes on Buddhism

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2006.

... l'homme n'est pas ce qu'il est, il est ce qu'il n'est pas.-- Jean Paul Sartre

Buddhism is a spiritual movement founded by Siddharta Gautama in India in the 6th century BC and became the first multi cultural spiritual tradition in the higher civilization of the Eurasian world. Buddhism lasted in India for some 1500 years, until it disappeared from India as that country became progressively dominated by Islam. Buddhism moved then to Ceylon, China (first century AD), Korea (fourth century AD), and Japan (sixth century AD); eastward into Burma, Thailand (third century AD), Cambodia (fourth century AD), Indonesia (third century AD) and the other countries of southeastern Asia with the exception of the Philippines. It became the dominant spiritual movement in Tibet (eight century AD), and Mongolia (thirteen century AD).

The teaching of Buddha was handed down to succeeding generations in the form of a threefold refuge: the Buddha, the teaching and the community. These are three aspects of the Buddha reality. 1- The teaching itself is a form of Buddha presence. The teaching is supreme insofar as it is in virtue of the teaching that a person is guided to experience the saving illumination concerning the nature of sorrow and the way to release from sorrow. 2- The community has a certain priority since it carries and sustain the entire Buddhist tradition. 3- The doctrine would have had no inner development or preservation or propagation except through the community. Yet supreme over everything is the Buddha reality.

The Message
Buddha's teaching was transmitted orally to his disciples. It consists of the theory, the path and the sangha. The core of the theory is the concept of human suffering and the possibility of emancipation. Individuality implies limitation, desire causes suffering since what is desired is transitory, changing and perishing.

Reality
Reality is composed of dharmas (components) or a succession of microseconds of existence. Buddha departed from the teachings of must Hinduism by not having a precise eschatology (a theory of final things). Life is a stream, a river, of manifestations and extinctions. There's nothing permanent and thereby no fixed self.

Karma
Buddhists accept the notion of karma, however, this presented a problem with their notion of no-self. How could one prove that one can reincarnate with a no self, i.e. with no permanent subject? Some scholars have considered this to be unsolvable. The relations between existences has been compared to the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is very different in every moment. A sort of ever changing identity.

The Four Noble Truths
There are four noble truths. 1-The truth of sorrow, 2-the truth that sorrow originates within us from the craving of pleasure, 3-the truth that this craving can be eliminated and 4-the truth that a methodical path must be followed to obtain this goal. Otherwise human beings would remain indefinitely in samsara.

The Eightfold Path
Hence Buddha formulated the law of dependent origination or paticca-samuppada) whereby one condition arises out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions. Given the awareness of this law, the question arises as to how one may escape the continually renewed cycle of births, suffering and death. There must be a purification that leads to overcoming this process. Such a liberating purification is effected by following the Noble Eightfold Path constituted by 1-the right views, 2-the right aspiration, 3-the right speech, 4-the right conduct, 5-the right livelihood, 6-the right effort, 7-the right mindfulness and 8-the right meditational attainment. This implies the rejection of the infallibility of accepted scripture: No teaching should be accepted unless they are borne out by our experience and are praised by the wise.
Anicca: All things that come to be have an end.
Dukkha: Nothing which comes to be is ultimately satisfying.
Anattā: Nothing in the realm of experience can really be said to be "I" or "mine". Nibbāna (Sanskrit: Nirvāna: It is possible for sentient beings to realize a dimension of awareness which is totally unconstructed and peaceful, and end all suffering due to the mind's interaction with the conditioned world.

Nirvana
The aim is to be rid of the delusion of the ego, freeing oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who succeeds has achieved enlightenment. The term is nirvana translated as dying out
But nirvana is not extinction. And Buddha repudiated this. Buddhists search for salvation, not annihilation. Although nirvana is often presented as negative, it can be seen as the ultimate goal for salvation in Buddhism.

Sangha
Sangha refers to the assembly of believers. There are two meanings, the monastic Sangha of ordained Buddhist monks or nuns and the assembly of all beings possessing some degree of realization.

Philosophy club meeting today @ 1pm @ room 1659

Statement relased by Wall Street Protesters

To thing or not to thing

Check this post on Miami Bourbaki. Forgive the philosophy jargon, which in this case is sort of necessary, I'd like to share my argument with you. Heidegger is an important 20th-century philosopher who constructed a philosophy known as Existentialism, whose protagonist is Dasein (a German word for "man," "human"). Heidegger was interested in Dasein, but also in (b)eings: things. Harman takes Heidegger's philosophy, deconstruct it to make it work for the thing. In doing so, Harman destroys many of Heidegger's Dasein's appurtenances in order to build his own metaphysics which he calls tool-being (check my 3-point manifesto regulating metaphysics at the beginning of the post).

My disagreement with Harman is that after all is said and done Dasein (not the thing) is still in charge. One cannot pretend to theorize for the thing "as if" the thing is theorizing for itself. Harman will not admit to that and sugar-coats the moment of discovery as transcendence. There is nothing wrong with using transcendence, only that Harman cannot have his cake and eat it too. Anyway... thanks for the reading and good luck.

To thing or not to thing

Check this post on Miami Bourbaki. Forgive the philosophy jargon, which in this case is sort of necessary, I'd like to share my argument with you. Heidegger is an important 20th-century philosopher who constructed a philosophy known as Existentialism, whose protagonist is Dasein (a German word for "man," "human"). Heidegger was interested in Dasein, but also in (b)eings: things. Harman takes Heidegger's philosophy and tries to make it work for the thing. In doing so, Harman destroys many of Heidegger's Dasein's appurtenances in order to build his own metaphysics which he calls tool-being (check my 3-point manifesto regulating metaphysics at the beginning of the post).

My disagreement with Harman is that after all is said and done, Dasein's is still in charge. One cannot pretend to theorize for the thing as if it is theorizing for itself. Harman will not admit to that and sugar-coats the moment of discovery as transcendence. There is nothing wrong with using transcendence, only that Harman cannot have his cake and eat it too. Anyway... thanks for the reading and good luck.

About emergent properties...

As ants in a colony.

Birds coordinating flight maneuvers over Gretna, Scotland.


This smart girl offers a pretty cool explanation on nature patterns of complexity (keep in mind this emergence is less complex than what we find in consciousness).

Philosophy Club update

Many of you have come to me inquiring for the club. Celia, the club's president tells me that the Philosophy Club will meet on room #1659, Mondays from 1-2pm, until the end of the semester. For more information, please, click here. You can also leave questions or suggestions here.

ººforking¬ ¬pathsºº

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, (1960).

In emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment.-- Paramita Hridaya Sutra

Alfredo Triff

 In Buddhist philosophy there are no wholes: only parts. Similarly, there is no progression to an actuality. The Buddhist moment does not progress toward realization.

Tom Friedman, Big Bang, (Glitter and mixed media on paper, 2008).

It harks back to Nagarjuna's doctrine of Sunyata, a crucial concept in Buddhist philosophy. Imagine a universe of correlations, whereby everything is connected. Whatever is at any moment of space-time, consists of conditions or relationships, and these, too, are dependently co-originated:  

"The 'originating dependently' we call 'emptiness.' " "Emptiness is dependent co-origination."

Sunyata does not mean absolute lack, but rather a positive meaning of being, the ultimate source of all reality. Lama Govinda interprets the principle:

"śūnyatā is not a negative property, but a state of freedom from impediments and limitations, a state of spontaneous receptivity, in which we open ourselves to the all-inclusive reality of a higher dimension. Far from being the expression of a nihilistic philosophy which denies all reality, it is the logical consequence of the anātman doctrine of non-substantiality. Śūnyatā is the emptiness of all conceptual designations and at the same time the recognition of a higher, incommensurable and indefinable reality, which can be experienced only in the state of perfect enlightenment."*

What does it mean to say that reality is ultimately and intimately relational? Sunyata is the reverse of Pratitya Samutpada, the Buddhist law of dependent co-origination. There is no self-subsisting, isolated phenomena. Reality is relation(ship), always in flux, always becoming.

Ghada Amer, Anne, (Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 2004).

Reality is always digested, interpreted, quantified, apprehended. The common sense, everyday perception of things is one amongst many other constructions or versions of the world. What happens is that we "normally" understand the world as made up of distinct, self-subsisting substances, and hence we are able to put things in rational order according to various rules or laws. So, while Sunyata -negatively- means that nothing has a sufficient basis of its being in itself, Pratitya Samutpada means -positively- that one event is dependent on others.

One concept is implied in the statement of the other. Substance, for example would be dependent only on itself, thus excluding both Sunyata as well as Pratitya Samutpada. Therefore, Buddhism doesn't recognize recognizes substance.

The distinction comes from a passage in the catuṣkoṭi of the Mādhyamikas:
a- It is not the case that x is ϕ.
b- It is not the case that x is not-ϕ.
c- It is not the case that x is both ϕ and not-ϕ.
d- It is not the case that x is neither ϕ nor not-ϕ

It seems very complicated, but one can see it as twotruths: Are you warp-yarn or weft- yarn?

 Kaisa Puhakka charts the stylized reification process as such:

"We are typically not aware of ourselves as taking something (P) as real. Rather, its reality 'takes us,' or already has us in its spell as soon as we become aware of its identity (P). Furthermore, it's impossible to take something (P) to be real without, at least momentarily, ignoring or denying that which it is not (not-P). Thus the act of taking something as 'real' necessarily involves some degree of unconsciousness or lack of awareness. This is true even in the simple act of perception when we see a figure that we become aware of as 'something.' In Gestalt psychology, for each figure perceived, there is a background of which we remain relatively unaware. Now, extend this dynamic to text-analysis or speech acts. In hermeneutics, for every text we understand there is a context we miss. With every figure noticed or reality affirmed, there is, inevitably, unawareness. Is this how a spell works?"**

French philosopher Alain Badiou presents his ontology surprisingly close to Buddhism. For Badiou, 1- Being has no latent structure of its own. 2- Being's multiplicity is irreducible to any totality. 3- Ontology is a theory of the void, which is why "the infinite" is a void. It cannot be reduced to a unity. To think of Being means to posit oneself as as "warp" or "waft" (or both?).

Between uncontrolled chaos and absolute disorder:  

Julie Mehretu, Dispersion (Ink and acrylic on canvas, 2002).

What drives this "thirst" for being? Let's see it this way: An entity is reproduced through a replication of its states. Each moment comprising a state of the entity. A complete entity can only be the result of an imaginative reconstruction over a series of states. Sculptor Schramm presents it as in-between of place and no/place: 

Felix Schramm, Misfit (2005-06) @ SFMoMA

The sequence of the replications is linked together in the mind through the rapid succession of similar moments. This gives the continuity of experience and the appearance of persistence. In Martin Oppel's Untitled, the gravity-defying totem-like sculpture becomes a cipher for legion (one in the many).  

Martin Oppel, Untitled (Strata Fiction C, 2008).

Satkari Mookerjee writes that the arrow in its flight "is not one but many arrows successively appearing in the horizon, which give rise to the illusion of a persistent entity owing to continuity of similar entities." 

At this point, Jorge Luis Borges can lend us a hand:

"The Garden of Forking Paths is an enormous riddle, or parable, whose theme is time; this recondite cause prohibits its mention. To omit a word always, to resort to inept metaphors and obvious periphrases, is perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it. That is the tortuous method preferred, in each of the meanderings of his indefatigable novel, by the oblique Ts'ui Pên. I have compared hundreds of manuscripts, I have corrected the errors that the negligence of the copyists has introduced, I have guessed the plan of this chaos, I have re-established -I believe I have re-established- the primordial organization, I have translated the entire work: it is clear to me that not once does he employ the word 'time.' The explanation is obvious: The Garden of Forking Paths is an incomplete, but not false, image of the universe as Ts'ui Pên conceived it. In contrast to Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another, I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost."

_______
*Lama Anagarika Govinda, Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness, pp. 10-11.** Kaisa Puhakka, Puhakka, Kaisa (2003). "Awakening from the Spell of Reality: Lessons from Nāgārjuna' within," in Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (State University of New York Press, 2003), p. 134, 145.

"Give birth to myself"

I found this revealing quote from Gabriel García Márquez: “Not only am I born by being delivered from my mother’s womb, but each time life forces me to give birth to myself.” Very fitting as a metaphor for reincarnation, methinks.

Meditation (in 13 points)

Swami Yogananda

1- Regularity of time, place and practice are important for meditation. 2- The most effective times are early dawn and dusk, when the atmosphere is charged with special spiritual force. If it is not feasible to sit for meditation at these times, choose an hour when you are not involved with daily activities, and a time when the mind is apt to be calm. 3- Try to have a separate room for meditation. 4- When sitting, face North or East in order to take advantage of favorable magnetic vibrations. Sit in a steady, comfortable position (preferably with cross-legged position with spine and neck erect but not tense). 5- Before beginning, command the mind to be quiet for a specific length of time. Forget the past, present and future. 6- Focus on your breath. Begin with five minutes of deep abdominal breathing to bring oxygen to the brain. Then slow it down to an imperceptible rate. 7- Keep the breathing, rhythmic, inhale for three seconds and exhale for three seconds. Regulation of breath also regulates the flow of prana, the vital energy. 8- Allow the mind to wander at first. It will jump around, but will eventually become concentrated, along with the concentration of prana. 9- Don't force the mind to be still, as this will set in motion additional brain waves, hindering meditation. 10- Select a focal point on which the mind may rest. For people who are intellectual by nature, this may be the Ajna Chakra (the point between the eyebrows). Never change this focal point. 11- Focus on a neutral or uplifting object, holding the image in the place of concentration. If using a Mantra, repeat it mentally, and co-ordinate repetition with the breath. If you dont have a personalized Manta, use OM. Never change the Mantra. 12- Repetition will lead to pure thought, in which sound vibration merges with thought vibration, without awareness of meaning. Vocal repetition progresses through mental repetition to telepathic language, and from there to pure thought. 13- With practice, the idea of duality disappears and Samadhi, or the superconscious state, is reached. Do not become impatient, as this takes a long time.

MWF, 11am

TR, 9:50am

T, 5:40pm

MWF, 9am

List of terms for our test next Thursday (Vedanta, Jaina & Yoga)

Find the list for our exam here. It constains notes on Vedanta, Jaina and Yoga philosophies. Remember, the test has two parts, 1. identification of terms, where you are asked to provide definitions for the terms studied. 2. A mini-essay roughly one page, where you elaborate a theme you previously worked on. Either pencil or pen is fine. Please, be legible! :)

Yoga as pris de conscience!

 Elizabeth Magill, Lower Lough, 2006.

(This post should go along our reading of the Patanjali Sutras). There are a few things I want to come back to. Keep in mind that Yoga is a methodology, a HOW TO manual for spirituality. This is not a set of formulas one debates trying to find apriori reasons. It's more knowing-as-doing, doing-as-feeling.

To find out about Yoga's validity one has to try it.*

There are two ways of looking at this: You don't accept a whole model but take some of its parts, or you reinterpret the parts. Let me address some of these concepts as I see them:

 Elizabeth Magill, Parlous Land, 2006.

1. Reincarnation is repetition. Is repetition the same throughout? The idea is that (R)eality is a ground of reverberating intensity. If that ground is difference (perpetual differentiation) then repetition cannot be of the same, but only of the different, i.e, the renewal of the different. We never wake up to the same morning!

2. Purification is pris de conscience! (i.e., taking charge). As in quantum physics where the observation alters the result of the experiment, purification takes one's disturbing one's -ongoing- movie. 

 Jeff Wall, After Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, 1999.

We live at a par of our unfolding. So, as the moving-picture plays, there is a possibility to see it -AS IF- we were outside it. This position of "being-outside" as "being-inside" means that you can interact with yourself. There are parts of the movie you don't like and you change them as the movie plays. This is what the yogis call niyama.

We have two options: (a) like so many people, we just let the movie play (doing nothing), or (b) we choose to possibly changing aspects of our own story as it unfolds.  

3. Attachment is as difficult as it is obvious. We are amidst a raja vortex of forces. We're matter, only in a high state of complexity. And matter craves matter. Yet, MIND being an emergent property of matter, can sort of detach itself from matter. This is the difference between sattvas and tamas.

Elizabeth Magill, Oncoming, 2006. 

4. Attainments. Now comes the big one: What is samadhi? Liberation, a sort of riding with the wind. Finding oneself (being-one-with- ______). Of course, that is too general to make sense. What's key here is that finding of oneself presents us with a goal. Pursuing the goal is a way to do it. The journey!

We must not forget Patanjali's caveat about samadhi which is a point he shares with Nietzsche's own idea of rapture: "... the path to one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own hell."

This is why Patanjali is so careful about attachments. If the voyage into the horizon of the infinite fills us with a "thrill," this is because something is glimpsed in samadhi which is in excess of the human, something that is "too much." A voyage into the eye of the maelstrom: Nobody can do it for you.

5. Dhyana invites a unique question: Why not thinking about non-thinking?
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*Only then, as the French say, en connaissance de cause, one can say "it's not good."  **In keeping with Buddhism's central teaching of pluralism that there are many ways to heaven, we can say that Yoga is another way.