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Author
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Topic: The horror! The horror!
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Oh, hell...not another "atheism = nihilism" thread.
Does it bother you--anyone--that in a few short years you will cease to exist? It bothers the hell out of me. Robin, Illness, old age, and death were the three facts of life that convinced Gautama Siddhartha that suffering was unavoidable and led him to abandoned his life as a prince and future monarch to see if there was a way out of suffering. Well, their are several solutions "the eat, drink, and be merry live for the moments pleasure", or one can choose to believe in a religion that promises that if you follow it one day you will be reborn into a life with no suffering. The Buddha's solution and others of his sort was to look into just what existence is, what we are, not think about it but to experience it in detail to see just what this suffering is and who suffers it. There are other choices, these are the three that come first to mind. I'd suggest it worth your while to at least skim a couple of introductory books on Buddhism as you might find something there you can relate to. lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 35 by robinrohan, posted 01-17-2005 4:47 PM | | robinrohan has replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Oh, hell...not another "atheism = nihilism" thread.
The experience of no-self : a contemplative journey Author: Roberts, Bernadette, 1931- Publisher, Date: Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York, c1993. - Edition: Rev. ed. ISBN: 0791416941 (pbk. : alk. paper) - Description: 211 p. ; 21 cm ABE: Robin, Bernadette even discusses her experience of the "horror" as part of her passage. lfen This message has been edited by lfen, 01-18-2005 13:22 AM
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 41 by robinrohan, posted 01-18-2005 8:40 AM | | robinrohan has replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Oh, hell...not another "atheism = nihilism" thread.
Consciousness developing that late! Robin, Well, self consciousness is what I think he is talking about. Sentience , or primordial awareness which is what I call consciousness would have been prior. Jaynes work is highly speculative and I don't how to substatiate it. It's just he is so brilliant in his theories that I enjoy reading all the possibilities his mind generated that were definately outside the box. The idea that writing was initially a trigger for auditory hallucinating of the words is another of his amazing but how could you ever prove it ideas. Still, I loved that book and want to find time to reread it one of these days. lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 44 by robinrohan, posted 01-18-2005 2:41 PM | | robinrohan has replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Oh, hell...not another "atheism = nihilism" thread.
I don't see how you can be conscious without being self-conscious. Not much time this morning. First I suggest: The feeling of what happens : body and emotion in the making of consciousness Author: Damasio, Antonio R. Publisher, Date: New York : Harcourt Brace, c1999. - Edition: 1st ed. ISBN: 0151003696 - Description: xii, 386 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Then I'll ask. Do you think dogs are self conscious? conscious? What about cats? fish? ants? bacteria? plants? just trying to calibrate the concept a bit. lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 46 by robinrohan, posted 01-20-2005 9:23 AM | | robinrohan has not replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
Robin, The Heart Of Awareness A translation of the Ashtavakra Gita ----- By Dr. Thomas Byrom http://www.swcp.com/~robicks/gita00.htm Is online. Easy to read, it's brief and gives a very interesting alternative take on "dispair" or the "horror".
What is illusion, Or the world? What is the little soul, Or God himself? One without two, I am always the same. I sit in my heart. What need is there For striving or stillness? What is freedom or bondage? What are holy books or teachings? What is the purpose of life? Who is the disciple, And who is the master? For I have no bounds. I am Shiva. Nothing arises in me, In whom nothing is single, Nothing is double. Nothing is, Nothing is not. What more is there to say?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 52 by robinrohan, posted 01-21-2005 4:52 PM | | robinrohan has not replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
Robin, I was reading this excerpt from Nisargadatta's book I AM THAT and he seems to have put it very succinctly:
Maharaj In the great mirror of consciousness images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material -- destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence -- vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: 'I-am-so-and-so' obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die ... I am beyond all dreams. I am light in which all dreams appear and disappear. I am both inside and outside the dream. Just as a man having a headache knows the ache and also knows that he is not the ache, so do I know the dream, myself dreaming and myself not dreaming -- all at the same time. I am what I am before, during and after the dream. But what I see in dream, I am not." Seeker If both dream and escape from dream are imaginings, what is the way out? Maharaj There is no need of a way out! Don't you see that a way out is also part of the dream? All you have to do is to see the dream as dream. Seeker If I start the practice of dismissing everything as a dream, where will it lead me? Maharaj Wherever it leads you, it will be a dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of the dream and not another. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done. http://www.advaita.org/
The horror is one way of looking at things. It may even be one of great themes but your reaction to the "horror" demonstrates that there is something beyond it. lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 52 by robinrohan, posted 01-21-2005 4:52 PM | | robinrohan has replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
In that I am aware of the horror? Or in that I am preferring one part of the dream to another--preferring the delightful to the horrible? Both though when I wrote that I was thinking of the former. In the context of Buddhism, samsara the endless rounds of birth/death, pleasure/suffering hypnotize us so to speak. They are so compelling that we don't remember nirvana. Samsara can't be escaped but all we need to do is remember that we aren't caught in it beyond the belief that we are caught. Not that awakening is easy but it's always possible. You are the meaning you are seeking and it's the seeking that is distracting you from remembering that. lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 59 by robinrohan, posted 01-24-2005 5:14 PM | | robinrohan has not replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
In this vein, not only is there nothing to worry about, there isn't even someone to do the actual worrying. And here you arrive at a Buddhist or Advaitist non dual position. There is worrying but no worrier and then the horror disappears. lfen
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
I apologize for hijacking your conclusions or implying you are a Buddhist. I should have said something along the lines of "and arriving at this position one is close to a Buddhist or Advaitist statement". I wasn't concluding that that was your position but meant that your statement could be seen as compatible with Buddhist or Advaitist philosopy. I was taken with your perception that nihilism leads to the dissolution of the concept of the entity "worrier". That your argument led by a different pathway to something I find to be an important insight. I dont' accept that it is illogical to say there is a worry without a worrier. "ungramatical" perhaps, but I don't think illogical. It's too late tonight for me to develop the semantics of this but it can be done in a general semantics sense where the use of the verb "to be" as identity is dissallowed. Or think of Buckminister Fuller saying "I seem to be a verb". Anyway, I wish I had expressed my appreciation of your analysis in a different way. Sorry about the misrepresentation. lfen
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Parasomnium and Ifen
I think Ifen's view is as follows: There is no "self" although there seems to be. This "seeming" is the ego, and it is the ego that causes the sense of horror at life's pointlessness and suffering and death. Robin, My view is much more tentative seeker but I am trying to give the non dual view as I understand it. One problem is that Advaita coming from Hinduism does speak of a self, whereas Buddhism speaks of nirvana and beyond nirvana but I think they are two ways of conceptualizing the same experience. So using Self language I will be expressing an Advaitist viewpoint. There is only one Self. It is consciousness and the source. When it identifies with an organism to the point of forgeting it is the Self it experiences as a ego, a separate self. The advaitist have a tricky time with whether it can be done or not. Here is where the true function of a guru comes in. The guru is the the Self entering into the dream to rouse the dreamer to lucidity. Of course the dreamer is the Self also.
Nihilism is a natural and even reasonable reaction to existence. Well, Nihilism is one way the ego can encounter its illusoriness thus it can serve as a trigger to awaken to the Subject. Self in Advaita refers to the true subject of consciousness. I'm very interested in this viewpoint but am still very much an ego in samsara as far as I can tell. My own viewpoint mostly holds it's worthwhile to explore and meditate on these viewpoints. But I'm really tired having been kept awake a lot last night. So I'm not sure I'm making sense and will say no more at this time. lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 72 by robinrohan, posted 01-27-2005 10:35 AM | | robinrohan has replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
Para, I didn't think you sounded upset but I had been imprecise and wanted to clear that up. My personal exploration of consciousness can be described roughly as a two pronged investigation. One "prong" is the various Eastern and Western non dual teachings. The other "prong" is more contemporary western science and such fields as General Semantics. I can't state with certainty that consciousness is primordial and not emergent, yet I've great interest in the Eastern traditions that assert something equivalent to that while at the same time I'm interested in the growing understanding of how the brain functions. I will note that in my personal life the eastern investigation of consciousness recieves the greater emphasis. Much of my posting activity in this forum grows out of this interest of mine so further exploration suits me just fine. lfen
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: An evening of Modernist Poetry
Automata! Robin, Years ago I read a Zen story that I think bears on this. In that story instead of nihilism the subject of the story for some reason looking in a mirror at some angle failed to see her face and grew disconsolate and upset. The story has all sorts of people arguing with her to convince her she had a head but in the end it was the Zen master to the rescue who through the direct expedient of whacking her on her noggin convinced her that she indeed had a head. Nihilism is a nightmare. What is the solution to nightmares? Wake up! lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 50 by robinrohan, posted 01-21-2005 1:46 AM | | robinrohan has not replied |
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: 06-24-2004
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Re: Back to the "the horror"
Para, I've not much time this morning so this is just a dashed off response. I'm investigating the Eastern claim that there is something prior to and underlying our consciousness. I'll use a translation of a Tibetan term and refer to it as primordial consciousness. This primordial consciousness is in effect obscured by the contents of consciousness, our ideas, memes etc. In Zen Buddhism this is also called "your original face before your father and mother were born." more later, lfen
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 83 by Parasomnium, posted 02-01-2005 7:34 AM | | Parasomnium has not replied |
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