XPost: alt.philosophy.zen, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.taoism
From: tanghuyen@gmail.com
On 8/22/2016 7:34 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:
> "{:-])))" ,
>> If you found what you were looking for,
>> how would you know it?
> Such a thorny bush.
>
> With certain kinds of knowing also come knowing that you know.
>
> Then there is relative knowing which allows for the possibility that
> you might be wrong, or that somebody else's idea might be correct.
>
> And absolute knowing which confers obnoxious but necessary rights and
> duties towards others, as ISIS can tell you.
>
> Finally, there is the student who must know which teacher can teach
> him what he needs to know.
>
> But there is no way out of it. We will all end up knowing something
> or other. The question you should answer then, is what would you like
> to know? It is also possible to not answer that question. That does
> not mean that you won't end up knowing anything. Only that you didn't
> choose what it would be.
Mental culture can be understood more easily
if one looks at those who have failed it and who
are worse off than the sinners in the street who
have never heard of mental culture. They are
hysterically defensive, and their defence is
against themselves primarily, and only
secondarily against others.
To me, mental culture is to break through the
cocoon that one grows to envelop and protect
oneself. It often is called the defence wall, and
the best known parts of it are the Freudian
defence mechanisms. If one is open to oneself
and honest to oneself, one is already half-way
to the ending of suffering. On top of that, if one
keeps opening up oneself to oneself all the
way, one gets awakened. But there is no way
to know a priori what that state is like, because
all a priori knowledge is intimately associated
with defence, and here all defence is dropped.
It is pure openness, rather than any content.
Tang Huyen
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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