Comments on: The Semiotics of Enlightenment

By: Vince Horn

Vince Horn — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:40:55 +0000

No offense Kathryn, but I don’t think you did actually understand the gist of the article. It wasn’t to simplify anything, but rather to show philosophically one reason why people misunderstand enlightenment. I don’t assume that this is necessarily a simple thing, as the human psychology is incredibly complex. Hence the reason for using fairly complex ideas to try and address it. Sometimes trying to simplify things equals dumbing them down and missing key distinctions.

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:35:47 +0000

I think this article is an oxymoron. Its aim seems to be to simplify something by being as complicated as possible.
It upsets me that you guys are trying to make enlightment into some crazy worded definitions. It seems the aim is to achieve some kind of ego feeding from lack of real results. I like to talk about complicated ideas in simplest terms possible so we can actually all get it and move on.
Yes we all have subjective opinions about EVERYTHING. I suppose this article explains this point in most difficult way to understand it ever.

By: Duff

Duff — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:18:55 +0000

@Hokai: I often feel that my highest and best thoughts are but a small part of your much larger perspective! Can you point me towards some resources for learning more about paradoxical and mandalic reasoning?

@eric: Studies of indigenous tribal people show 20 hours a week of work, and most is spent in enjoyable activity at low stress levels. We cannot return to this of course, and this is a different discussion…

By: eric

eric — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:38:27 +0000

“To think about is to leave something out.”

To think about is to attach to the mind, which changes the experience of identity. And while the mind very literally cannot understand this experience of identity, is it true that the mind is limited in the sphere of thought?

I’m not sure you can completely rip on science and technology when they are constantly reducing the number of hours and people required to meet basic needs, even if there isn’t a society/system that supports low employment as a goal. Are we not talking dharma in an oh-so-techno-savvy way made possible by science and tech? I have high hopes for what minds are capable of once they stop running conditioning loops trying to prop up the illusion of being the self.

By: Steven

Steven — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:04:59 +0000

Duff: I see a distinction between the semiotics and the attitude we take towards them. A more specific and careful terminology can help us both avoid conflating our concepts of enlightenment with the real deal, and with narrowing down and diagnosing mistakes we make on our path. One othet lesson to take from the Zen teaching Vince referenced is to not follow the ideas and concepts we use to reach enlightenment too strictly. After all, the moon may have moved from where the finger last pointed, and we are not in the same position as the one pointing.

By: Hokai

Hokai — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:56:15 +0000

Duff is quite right as far as binary logical thought is concerned. One step beyond that we find paradoxical thinking, and yet one step further mandalic reasoning. Each of these function as meta-reasoning to the previous levels and modalities found therein. Also, each of these has its own issues (i.e. shadows) if enacted in confused ways with regard to the fundamental nature and structure of reality. What we may work towards is a culture of sliding complexity – from binary thinking to mandalic reasoning and even further – used by subjects that have clarified their own fundamental condition to at least a significant degree. Those in pre-awakening stages of practice should feel encouraged to develop a reflective capacity to critically examine their own – often unconcsious, often culturally mediated – models of progress and realization. In short, dedogmatization and detabooization of buddhahood is a hallmark of post-postmodern dharma, to be measured as it should be by its capacity to inspire, ensober, empower, and awaken.

By: Duff

Duff — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:56:55 +0000

I find myself torn recently between the perspective you argue here and its antithesis.

On the one hand, precision language can be applied to subjective experience (the very foundation of Neuro-Linguistic Programming is to discover the structure of subjective experience) to create more accurate models. This can be extremely useful pragmatically, developing greater accuracy and control for psychospiritual technology. Specialized language can lead to very precise information gathering, turning phenomenology into more and more an exact science.

On the other hand, there are fundamental, absolute limits to the modeling or semiotic process itself. This includes limits to language, number, and indeed thinking itself. To think about is to leave something out. To make a map is to delete, distort, and generalize.

Science and technology tend to ignore these limits, even those discovered as the very foundation of logic (Gödel’s incompleteness theorem), mathematics , physics (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, special and general relativity), etc.

Science–and indeed all thought and abstraction including language–tends to proceed on the basis that nothing essential is lost in the process of modeling. Yet a scientific worldview has reduced the world to nothing but meaningless matter and selfish genes, devoid of soul, purpose, or beauty.

Perhaps by further analyzing and controlling subjective experience, we will complete the task of desacrilizing the universe, inner and outer, preparing for a re-emergence of the sacred in all things.