p.89. " The difficulty, however, says Kierkegaard, is that the wanderer, who has only accidentally come upon the quiet place, feels he is surrounded by a nature that does not understand him 'even though it always seems as f an understanding must be arrived at'. Therefore he says, the wanderer can see the stars, but the stars cannot see him, 'thus there is no agreement between him and the stars.' With the person who confesses, however, things are different: 'the environment knows well enough what that stillness means and that is asks for earnestness. It knows that it is its wish to be understood' (p.26 original text)
p.90 " For Dogen, our suffering stems not so much from the nature of existence as from a false perception of existence. That is, it stems from delusion. This delusional awareness then leads us to form attachments to non-existent or misconstrued objects, including the idea of an unchanging self, and ties us into a cycle of suffering when the world does not fit with our misperceptions and attachments. The way out of this cycle is to see through one's delusions and thus break these attachments.
This much of Dogen's thought is supported by the core of the Buddha's philosophy [...] Selfish desire is based on the delusion of a persisting self, which in turn leads to attachments to things which one misperceives as one's own or as having the potential for being one's own. The way out of this problem is to give up selfish desire."
Monday 29 November 2010
Thursday 25 November 2010
PROVOCATIONS - Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard
Reading Provocations now- it is the book that is helping to find the true self, discover something that was always there, but was lost for a while somehow.. a possibility of the crazy city life? no, we are not blaming anyone and anything, it was purely out of our own weaknesses.. but now the time for the recovery has come.
While living in London, one day there comes the time for realization of how many are losing themselves in their own world of dreams, trying to be someone else - pity they do not realize how silly they look sometimes from an outsider's perspective. It is rather sad that most of them will never come to realization and will never have a chance to uncover the true self as they will always be too preoccupied with material and simplistic living. Well if you are one of them, and do not afraid to acknowledge that, maybe this chapter will lead you in the right direction. It definitely helped me.
As it was noticed by a good friend of mine the other day, it is enough to be loved and supported by just one other person, to feel that strength and peace inside of yourself. But this other person has to love the true you.
The Despair of Weakness
If you would like to read the book please download it here
The despair of weakness is the despair of not wanting to be oneself. This kind of despair amounts to a passivity of the self. Its frame of reference is the pleasant and the unpleasant; its concepts are good fortune, misfortune, and fate. What is immediate is all that matters. The determining factor is what happens or does not happen to oneself. To despair is to lose the eternal, but of this loss the one who despairs in weakness says nothing, it doesn’t even occur to him. He is too preoccupied with securing his earthly existence against unnecessary deprivation. To lose the earthly, however, is not in itself to despair, yet that is precisely what this person speaks of and calls despair. What he says is in a sense true, only not in the way he understands it. He is turned around and what he says must be understood backwards. In other words, he stands there pointing to something that is not despair (e.g. a loss of some kind), explaining that he is in despair, and yes, sure enough, the despair is going on behind him but unawares.
Therefore, if everything suddenly changes, once his external circumstances change and his wishes are fulfilled, then happiness returns to him, he begins life afresh. When help comes from outside, happiness is restored to him, and he begins where he left off. Yet he neither was nor becomes a self. He is a cipher and simply carries on living merely on the level of what is immediate and of what is happening around him. This form of despair consists of not wanting to be a self, really. Actually, it consists of wanting desperately to be someone else.
Such a self refuses to take responsibility. Life is but a game of chance. Hence, in the moment of despair, when no help comes, such a person wants desperately to become someone else. And yet a despairer of this kind, whose only wish is this craziest of all crazy transformations – to be someone else – is in love with the fancy that the change can be made as easily as one puts on another coat. Or to put it differently, he only knows himself by his coat. He simply doesn’t know himself. He knows what it is to have a self only in externals. There could hardly be a more absurd confusion, for a self differs precisely, no, infinitely, from those externals.
And what if such a person was able to become somebody else, could put on a new self? There is the story of a peasant who had come barefoot to town but who made enough money to buy himself a pair of stockings and shoes and still have enough left over to get himself drunk. On his way home in his drunken state he lay down in the middle of the road and fell asleep. A carriage came along, and the coachman shouted to him to move aside or else he would drive over his legs. The drunken peasant woke up, looked down at his legs and, not recognizing them because of the stockings and shoes, said: “Go ahead, they aren’t my legs.” So it is with the immediate person who despairs in weakness of being a true self. It is impossible to draw a picture of him that is not comic.
While living in London, one day there comes the time for realization of how many are losing themselves in their own world of dreams, trying to be someone else - pity they do not realize how silly they look sometimes from an outsider's perspective. It is rather sad that most of them will never come to realization and will never have a chance to uncover the true self as they will always be too preoccupied with material and simplistic living. Well if you are one of them, and do not afraid to acknowledge that, maybe this chapter will lead you in the right direction. It definitely helped me.
As it was noticed by a good friend of mine the other day, it is enough to be loved and supported by just one other person, to feel that strength and peace inside of yourself. But this other person has to love the true you.
The Despair of Weakness
If you would like to read the book please download it here
The despair of weakness is the despair of not wanting to be oneself. This kind of despair amounts to a passivity of the self. Its frame of reference is the pleasant and the unpleasant; its concepts are good fortune, misfortune, and fate. What is immediate is all that matters. The determining factor is what happens or does not happen to oneself. To despair is to lose the eternal, but of this loss the one who despairs in weakness says nothing, it doesn’t even occur to him. He is too preoccupied with securing his earthly existence against unnecessary deprivation. To lose the earthly, however, is not in itself to despair, yet that is precisely what this person speaks of and calls despair. What he says is in a sense true, only not in the way he understands it. He is turned around and what he says must be understood backwards. In other words, he stands there pointing to something that is not despair (e.g. a loss of some kind), explaining that he is in despair, and yes, sure enough, the despair is going on behind him but unawares.
Therefore, if everything suddenly changes, once his external circumstances change and his wishes are fulfilled, then happiness returns to him, he begins life afresh. When help comes from outside, happiness is restored to him, and he begins where he left off. Yet he neither was nor becomes a self. He is a cipher and simply carries on living merely on the level of what is immediate and of what is happening around him. This form of despair consists of not wanting to be a self, really. Actually, it consists of wanting desperately to be someone else.
Such a self refuses to take responsibility. Life is but a game of chance. Hence, in the moment of despair, when no help comes, such a person wants desperately to become someone else. And yet a despairer of this kind, whose only wish is this craziest of all crazy transformations – to be someone else – is in love with the fancy that the change can be made as easily as one puts on another coat. Or to put it differently, he only knows himself by his coat. He simply doesn’t know himself. He knows what it is to have a self only in externals. There could hardly be a more absurd confusion, for a self differs precisely, no, infinitely, from those externals.
And what if such a person was able to become somebody else, could put on a new self? There is the story of a peasant who had come barefoot to town but who made enough money to buy himself a pair of stockings and shoes and still have enough left over to get himself drunk. On his way home in his drunken state he lay down in the middle of the road and fell asleep. A carriage came along, and the coachman shouted to him to move aside or else he would drive over his legs. The drunken peasant woke up, looked down at his legs and, not recognizing them because of the stockings and shoes, said: “Go ahead, they aren’t my legs.” So it is with the immediate person who despairs in weakness of being a true self. It is impossible to draw a picture of him that is not comic.
Thursday 18 November 2010
Kierkegaard and Japanese thought
Currently inspired by Kierkegaard and the book on him and the connection between his and Japanese thought.
Danish Philosopher Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is an enigmatic thinker whose works call out for interpretation. One of the most fascinating strands of this interpretation is in terms of Japanese thought. Kierkegaard himself knew nothing of Japanese philosophy, yet the links between his own ideas and Japanese philosophers are remarkable. These links were spotted quickly by Japanese thinkers and Japanese translations of Kierkegaard appeared long before English translations did. Yet, strangely enough, the Japanese relation to Kierkegaard has been all but ignored in the West.
This book seeks to remedy this by bringing the Japanese interpretation to the West. Here, both Japanese and Western scholars examine the numerous links between Kierkegaard and Japanese thought while presenting Kierkegaard in terms of ShintÅ, Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, the Samurai, the famous Kyoto school of Japanese philosophers, and in terms of pivotal Japanese thinkers who were influenced by Kierkegaard.
Danish Philosopher Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is an enigmatic thinker whose works call out for interpretation. One of the most fascinating strands of this interpretation is in terms of Japanese thought. Kierkegaard himself knew nothing of Japanese philosophy, yet the links between his own ideas and Japanese philosophers are remarkable. These links were spotted quickly by Japanese thinkers and Japanese translations of Kierkegaard appeared long before English translations did. Yet, strangely enough, the Japanese relation to Kierkegaard has been all but ignored in the West.
This book seeks to remedy this by bringing the Japanese interpretation to the West. Here, both Japanese and Western scholars examine the numerous links between Kierkegaard and Japanese thought while presenting Kierkegaard in terms of ShintÅ, Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, the Samurai, the famous Kyoto school of Japanese philosophers, and in terms of pivotal Japanese thinkers who were influenced by Kierkegaard.
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