-- "Are you still afraid of this?"

Originally posted by vistesd
He is, in fact a philosopher—and I, who am still just an armchair layperson in that regard, now have several shelves full of philosophy books, a collection that began when he handed my head to me on a platter five or six years ago. (Not that that dictated my reading selection, which is always eclectic.)

Can you tell me the story of just how he handed your head to you on a platter?

Originally posted by Soothfast
You could level this charge at several of the frequenters of this forum, though. The philosophy buffs are especially guilty. In just the past few days I've had to look up "epistemological," "ontological," "normative," "coherentist," "Euthyphro dilemma," "phronesis," "prima facie," "Neo-Hobbesian," "supervenience," and so on. All in the same thread, and ...[text shortened]... but there's a cryptic "insider's only" flavor to many of his arguments.

That is a good point, but all those terms you mention are pretty standard. I need help from BB on the term 'organon' as he means it, and I was asking for it.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Can you tell me the story of just how he handed your head to you on a platter?

I blithely (read: arrogantly) waded into an already ongoing philosophical debate between bbarr and lucifershammer (you likely remember him; you've been here almost as long as I have) with some uneducated, but highly assertive, comment. Bbarr demonstrated that I did not know what I was talking about (I didn’t), and asserted that my epistemology was “impoverished” (it was, which he also proceeded to demonstrate). I laugh now, but it was embarrassing at the time. Nevertheless, it was a good lesson. I am much more careful about declaiming on something about which I have little actual knowledge—for example, my knowledge of Buddhism is generally limited to Zen, and Rinzai Zen at that; I have not read Nagarjuna (who is, I understand, the “maestro” of Buddhist philosophy), or the more philosophical discourses of Dogen (Soto Zen), or the Dali Lama. My Zen, I know. I seldom commit the error of saying something like “Buddhism teaches…”.

I do take positions for the purpose of argument; sometimes, I forget to declare that. But I am less prone to wade in with my ego swinging (I say “less prone”, not “immune” 🙁 ). There are things over which I’ll “lock eyebrows” with anybody (even if I seem arrogant in so doing); there are more things where I will defer to people who seem to know more than I do (although, it sometimes takes argument to reveal that). I don’t mind being ignorant; I despise being willfully ignorant (other than that there are limits both on my time and my ability to learn—one cannot learn everything—but I will not argue from a position of willful ignorance).

Over the succeeding years, bbarr became a good friend on here. We are both nondualists. Our expressions of that are different—but that is just different streams of the same river.

BTW, I have always been a slow and stubborn learner. I have to say that bbarr’s original “handing me my head” (that should be read like a Zen master’s whack!) was a good lesson that helped to bootstrap me in my own “spiritual” (I do, really, dislike that word!) evolution.

Originally posted by JS357
That is a good point, but all those terms you mention are pretty standard. I need help from BB on the term 'organon' as he means it, and I was asking for it.

Standard to a "general audience"...? Really? I could muster a heavy barrage of algebraic topology and run circles around everyone aboard this forum, I'd wager, but it would be impolitic to do so, plus rather pointless. I'm not asking the philosophy buffs to dumb it down, I'm just saying there's no reason to single black beetle out for being "cryptic".

Originally posted by Soothfast
Standard to a "general audience"...? Really? I could muster a heavy barrage of algebraic topology and run circles around everyone aboard this forum, I'd wager, but it would be impolitic to do so, plus rather pointless. I'm not asking the philosophy buffs to dumb it down, I'm just saying there's no reason to single black beetle out for being "cryptic".

And you’re not wrong. (Although I confess that I did not look up “Riemannian geometry” ! 😉 ) That is why I sometimes take the time to lay out some background for Zen—and why I often strip koans of their cultural baggage to try to present them in a more practical way (of course, their cultural baggage did not render them impractical—in that cultural matrix!).

To someone steeped in Zen—well, we might not even hear the “crypticism” anymore. But I do think it’s important to recognize that that is just because I am steeped there, just as you are steeped in maths. I could say that the Hsing Hsing Ming of Seng Ts’an, the 3rd Zen patriarch really has all you need to know (Well, maybe with the Tao Te Ching thrown in&hellip😉—but that is useless if you have no background for understanding what Seng Ts’an is saying—even if, once that background is assumed, he really says things with pristine (if poetic) simplicity.

On the one hand, none of us can work on everything or learn everything—we all have to pick and choose. On the other hand, no one can see through a koan, just for example, without actually making the time to work on it. No explanations by me or anyone else can substitute—just as I really didn’t know any calculus until I could do (work through) calculus (all of which I, literally and actually, forget). One works on a koan because one hopes that it will offer an existential insight that will enrich one’s actual day-to-day living—sometimes in small ways, sometimes in larger ones. But there is none of that, “Only this way…” kind of stuff. They are just one means among many means; Zen is just one valid path among many (and I am not strictly Zen, by any means).

Blackbeetle and Bosse and I, for example, can talk back and forth with little translation in words that would be cryptic to most—and some of that is just because we know one another. But both of them have areas of knowledge whose expression becomes cryptic to me. But underlying all that is a common ground of non-dualism that helps to translate a lot.

______________________________________________

There is a Zen story (a koan in story form):

A man knocked at the door to a Zen temple, and told the gatekeeper that he came to receive teaching. In that temple at the time, there were two Zen masters (roshis: teachers). One said: “Bah! I have nothing to teach anyone! Why should I go see him?” The other Zen master said: “I have something to teach. I’ll go see him.”

In the original version (as I recall it anyway), the story ends there. However, a clue might be given: Both Zen masters are right. “Teaching” Zen is, at best, a paradox. What does it mean to say “I have nothing to teach”? What does it mean to say “I have something to teach”? Especially when it comes to something as complex and recursive as living out one’s own life in this existence? Another clue: Both Zen masters smiled and nodded to each other, in acknowledgement of their differing expressions of a mutually understood truth (at least, I imagine that they did).

Interesting thought: what if we turn that whole story-koan on its head—a visiting Zen teacher comes to a school. Two students: one says, there is nothing I need to learn from him. The other says, there is something that I need to learn from him…

Originally posted by Soothfast
Standard to a "general audience"...? Really? I could muster a heavy barrage of algebraic topology and run circles around everyone aboard this forum, I'd wager, but it would be impolitic to do so, plus rather pointless. I'm not asking the philosophy buffs to dumb it down, I'm just saying there's no reason to single black beetle out for being "cryptic".

Yes, there is no reason to single BB out. But there is also no reason to use this as an opportunity to list people, or to generalize. For that matter, I sometimes use terminology that I have picked up from my investigations into philosophy. When I use a term that someone thinks is cryptic, I expect to get a comment on it.

Originally posted by JS357
Yes, there is no reason to single BB out. But there is also no reason to use this as an opportunity to list people, or to generalize. For that matter, I sometimes use terminology that I have picked up from my investigations into philosophy. When I use a term that someone thinks is cryptic, I expect to get a comment on it.

Well and good. I probably shouldn't have said anything.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Well and good. I probably shouldn't have said anything.

Yes, it was probably imprudent, not to mention impolite, for me to start talking about other people in the 3rd person here as well. BB, my apologies.