Descartes debate was nothing new. Ancient Greeks were also preoccupied with it. May years ago, I read about an intellectual group in Baghdad around 1100 years ago known as "The Doubters" (or the Skeptics). They were in many ways similar to Descartes.
Exactly, the eternal question, who am I.
This skepticism lies at the heart of all proper critical thought, otherwise why so many questions. The middle way Theory, and I use that word in the proper scientific sense, not the conventional way, <g> is a profoundly paradoxical dialectic but it mirrors the conventions that gave rise to it. That is the really important part. There are lots and lots of questions to be asked in sorting it out philosophically and this was found to be so difficult in fact that different buddhist schools grew out of trying to do this. For example there were major break-ups, just over the interpretation of Nagarjunas exposition. I hope that just by using everyday examples, and as little "philosophy" as possible that I have created the correct impression. All that I think needs to be said is that middle way doctrine is a radical, practical skepticism, why else would question the nature of the scientific method, or of evil, for that matter.
At this point Abu threw his papers in the river and gave up the doctrine.
That was very nice story, thank you. If you meet the Buddha on the road, slay him.
Descartes and all those who question there is a real world beyond their thinking should close their eyes and wonder off in Baghdad today. If they live, they have proven their point. Otherwise the problems has been taken care of <g>.
True, excellent way of putting it. Someone once related to me a fantastic story of the difference between Heaven and Hell. Unfortunately, not all the chimps have gotten the message. GWB got the message, or in this particular instance, he was given it should we say, and OBL has definitely not gotten the message, even though he thinks he has, which is why these fellows are taking care of such things, wonder why. Anyway it goes that this other fellow wanted to know the difference between heaven and hell, so he found someone to show him. First they went to hell, and everything looked exactly as it normally does, it looked just like the real world, the one that we're all in, right here right now, except that everyone was seated at this long long table. You can just imagine how long it was, the interesting thing is that Nagarjuna used a table to prove the Buddhas doctrine of the middle way, so much for the practice, I think he had a lot of it, but anyway I digress, that wasn’t in the story as related to me but you know how it goes. So finally they get down there where everyone is and there is tons of food wine and song. They were talking up a storm, but the only thing was that everyone had these arms that extended as stiff 8ft poles coming straight off of their bodies which meant that despite all the food and other yummy things, that no one could put food in their mouths, and that was Hell. You can imagine the ruckus. So the guy is satisfied that he has seen Hell and asks to be taken upstairs to Heaven, which his valet does without much ado. They get up there and the guy is shocked because it all looks identical to what he saw downstairs, the same food the same wine the same song, the same long stiff arms.They too were talking up a storm. The only thing different this time was that everyone was feeding each other, so they sang a different tune.
Well I did change that a little bit from the way I heard it on account of circumstance, I mean I had to, so that it fit the paradigm, iow the fact that I changed it, arose as a consequence of posting this message to you, and like I said before I really don’t consider myself to be Buddhist, in the quintessentially true sense of the word, whatever that may be, so the question is, what should I do. Actually what I have to do is go out, a friend is off to Australia for a while and a few of us are meeting for drinks.
So for now, it's back to your regularly scheduled programming, so to speak. <g>
Catch up with you later. |
