The logic and mechanistic paradigms of
Western/European culture have overwhelmed indigenous, Eastern and other
non-dominant ways of understanding, experiencing and sharing the
commons (or world),
basically forcing all other cultures and perspectives to engage through
Western ways of thinking and seeing if they want to
participate.
Western thinkers tend to approach the unknown through rigidly shaped boundaries or “edges” that are mostly defined by what is already “known,” forever forcing new experience and observations into pre-existing concepts. One way to describe this kind of thinking is that it occurs inside of “boxes.” Western philosophy has become a great, complex edifice of boxes, where innovative thinking is most often used to define, defend, and extend territory, making already huge, ponderous intellectual contraptions merely larger, more rigid, and more complex. At the core of this approach is a familiar and prevalent collection of concepts (boxes) that extend rationally created and defended disconnection (delusion, illusion) was, as Descartes intended, a very rational justification of a “Self as opposed to Other" mode of existence, a mode that has since dominated the world.
“Other” becomes all others and all else, everything that is beyond ownership, control or able to be contained as a part of self-identity, with various interweaving levels of “Us, Them and That” becoming all the many diverse ways we have today to define, contain and determine complex, mechanistic, and highly alienated societies. What I am attempting to point at, without going into detail, is a whole underlying collection of establishment beliefs and ideologies that deeply justify our present society's immense conflict with nature, life, and self. It is a fundamental separation that essentially enables humanity's mostly unconscious destruction of the environment and the world. At its foundation is an immense human alienation from other individuals, peoples, life forms and the world as a whole that justifies, in the most fundamental ways, ALL wars at all levels, as well as all institutionalized social, environmental and cultural inequities.
Descartes’ thinking extended out of a pre-existing separation that was, in the European context, already well established in a major way through the Catholic church. All he did was turn it into a science, partly as a means to take over from the Church, in the same way that the bourgeoisie/merchant class, using Cartesian thinking, took over from the aristocracy and began what is now called Capitalism. Present day science, commerce and politics in most of their prevalent forms are deeply rooted in that original (European) institutionalized, Christian church established, separation from the Whole. Most Cartesian/ Atheist/ Agnostic arguments against traditional, institutionalized church philosophies and beliefs are basically arguing against a straw dog. Both sides in such arguments merely reinforce the many misleading views that we and the world are suffering from most acutely now, views based on a very fundamental and false belief in separation.
Those who argue for a mechanistic Universe ignore their own breathing, pulsing life and consciousness in order to do so, using twisting shifts of logic, a sort of logic that cannot really be "argued against,” so to speak, because to do so would be to merely accept and validate the underlying terms of the argument. It is an argument that insists upon the very nature of the argument itself to be the only means to fact and truth, and dominates simply by its continuing, emphatically maintained existence. Anyone who seeks for the truth in other ways and engages in such arguments will alway and merely justify the argument as valid. Inadvertently, they help the holder of the argument to continue the argument ad-infinitum, an argument that the establishment arguer strongly identifies his very existence with. This, at a basic level, is the primary purpose, to continue on identified as the One thinking such logic, in the continuation of an abiding faith in a fundamentally "egoist" self as being absolutely separate from all of the rest of existence. It is a circular kind of thinking that leads essentially nowhere, that is, always back into separation, with only some occasional change in outer appearances and language.
Interestingly, a mechanistic universe only exists in the consciousness of (someone) standing outside of the Universe, perceiving "It." That is just one of the peculiar effects of Cartesian thinking. In other words, Descartes replaced the "God standing outside of the universe" concept of the alienated/institutionalized Christian church with Himself, and all Cartesian thinkers since have been expanding upon that event, culturally instilling and institutionalizing that split, and reinforcing "Man as God" into all levels of Western society and Western thinking.
Letting go of "consciousness of other," the basis for all identities of separation, and learning to become more and more comfortable with “simply consciousness" welcomes a journey beyond rigidly held concepts of self, to a place where strong and healthy boundaries become means of perception and exchange, and ways to experience and embrace distinctions and diversity, rather than rigid structures of identity whose sole purpose is to establish territory. In that sort of journey identity is experienced in the context of consciousness, interaction, connection, interdependence, and relationship, rather than on ideological peripheries, rigid (unhealthy) boundaries, strongly held positions and mere appearances. Self, other, and unity is discovered to be an interweaving, creative process, a process that we are merely and incredibly participant in.
What is not often realized is that the Universe contains mechanistic logic, but mechanistic logic does not contain the Universe. To believe that the only reliable method we have for making sense is the scientific method assumes that sense is only and merely a logical event. The foolishness, in ultimate sense, of all mechanistic arguments against a Universe not experienced is that what is argued “against” is what is not known (as in, truly not experienced), which merely and forever (for as long as such an argument continues to be central to the identity of the arguer) sets it up so that arguers for a mechanistic Universe absolutely cannot experience anything beyond what they have already experienced. Labeling a box, or a collection of boxes, the Universe doesn't make it so.
In Cartesian theology (because of course Cartesian thinking is a theology, most of all…) "Man becomes God..." With some men, of course, then becoming "More God" than "others." Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Bush, and other similar persons are a perfect example of this belief system taken to it's most insane, unfeeling and disconnected extremes.
Before Descartes, it was the Church that gave the "rational" and theological underpinnings to this sort of event, in the form of kings, emperors, aristocracy, etc. The East had and has it's own problems with this human tendency, of course, in similar and different ways, but it is we in the West who have taken it to the extremes that are presently responsible for most of the present day major discontinuities between humans, and between humans and the natural world.
It could also be that we are upon an amazing journey (and creation story) of separation and return, and out of the return something actually new becoming in the Universe... collecting together a multitude of journeys and a multitude of stories, none of them completed, and yet within all of them is the possibility of weaving back together, in consciousness, so to speak, the reality of here and there, you and I, them and us, and all of it, as not ever separate to begin with. We have gone away and now we return, through a waking up to what has always been...
Waking up is the path, in other words, with the going and returning becoming, through the rejoining of what was never apart, a new act of creation at the level of the Universe as a whole, enabled through the possibilities of a human consciousness participating in what has always been, on-going... Creation.
Shared metaphors is, in a real sense I think, what religion in it's restored essence is about. This is not an attempt to debate religion, but rather to suggest that in the end all language that is not of a so-called practical nature, here and now, regarding survival and concrete things that we might be pointing to for each other, or as a way of sharing our efforts to manipulate substance (trees into shelter, iron into tools, silicon into solar panels, seeds into food…), all the rest of language is perhaps metaphor for what is always beyond conceptual grasp, but also real, in a very different sense of "real." Pointing fingers, so to speak. In that sense, what has become religion can, when it is not what we have turned it into, be a way for groups of people to share a common experience through shared metaphors of what can only ever be pointed at. To experience such, we must even let go of pointing..., step beyond the end of the finger... beyond the thought of ourselves... simply enter...
Regarding pragmatism and idealism, it may be that there is a way in all of this to weave these approaches together, into something else... Like my bones and my flesh, two different principals (hard and soft, simplistically), the pragmatist and the idealist woven together, with an assortment of other differences, into life, human... and not just human, but unique individuals. Then it is no longer about choosing between, but rather, choice becomes something else, that is, to join or not to join...
And if the (ongoing, eternal) choice is to join, there begins a new sort of journey, one in which we begin to discover how it is we are able to act out of the whole, as individuals. A kind of global spectrum of possibility that becomes aware through each of us awakening, separately and together....
Arguing with dogmatic belief, it's structures and ideology, including the ideology of a "separate" so-called supreme being (Cartesian thinking before Descartes was born...), recalls the "Briar Rabbit" stories from when I was a kid, and the "tar baby... " The more we argue with all of that, the more we get stuck in it, stuck in our own arguments with it, and/or stuck in "it" through our own arguments, so to speak, and what's the point? Why not, instead, go on with our own journey into (becoming) the mystery, become part of creation so to speak, and save our energy for those we meet along that sort of a path..?
What we think we defeat, in the sense of overcoming and/or destroying, we become, changing merely the appearance is all... Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi taught such things. Sort of the mystical dimensions of non-violence, in other words.
We can't, ego-intentionally, change another person's beliefs, so leave it, go with our own journey into freedom from dogma (whether it be scientific, economic, political, religious or personal dogma), and a direct (and growing) experience of mystery… Let go of trying to capture what is forever the mystery (or not), into concepts, and allow “it” to express through us, moment to moment, life itself awakening…
But, and of course, stay engaged. The people and circumstances we might want to change are a part of the world. We don't need to seek them out. They are in our face all over the place. Engagement, dialog, the opportunity is all around us, we don't have to make it happen, just step up when and as much we can, make our choices around time, energy, and personal needs, and engage. By living in the world as it is (even as much as we sometimes "hate" and despair of the way as it is...) while on such a path, well, maybe something will change on its own, so to speak...
Otherwise, our ways of thinking in terms of an "either/or" dichotomy, “us and them,” just keep getting rehabilitated, on and on, always with the underlying assumption that it is the only way to perceive, experience, or communicate. Dualism as our religion, seen as the only perceptive reality, eternally taking "either/or" as far as it will go, and when it no longer entertains or distracts us, or justifies our competitive and fearful relationships with each other and the world, we attempt to lift it into another level of either/or, with the new, bigger box still and forever posing (opposing) itself against all that seems to lie outside of it...
In a way it is sort of like when the capitalists started growing their hair long in the 70's, and playing John Lennon on Musak tapes in the 90's. Bigger and bigger boxes perhaps, but the same (fearful, alienated) values shape those boxes, along with the assertion that all that does not fall within said boxes does not exist, or has no value. With "bigger" in this case being a relative term, mostly based on comparing apples and oranges.
The dilemma we now face, particularly here in the U.S., has more to do with what is the context and what is contained within the context. Machines exist as a part of the living Universe- I drive one almost every day... but the fuel injection system in my truck (or my truck, or the interstate highway system) does not contain the living Universe. The machine (or reasoning mind) is a part of (and serves) a living Universe, except when it (we, I...) "think" our ways separate from it. "Separate" is the problem. And paradoxically, as in some understandings of Buddhism, separation is also our way home, like "stepping stones," with something new "becoming" in the Universe, in the process... a never ending journey.
Our machines are (obviously?) an extension of the logical mind, and we try to impose that logic (and our machines) on the Universe as a whole, which is an absurd effort, in the end. Logical mind is a part of greater mind, but we have identified with the actions and creations of logical mind to such an extent that we are no longer, or barely able to recognize ourselves in all the many ways we are, and are a part of, so much that is greater, infinite, infinite mind, even...
Part of our logical approach is that we attempt symmetry, we try to impose a symmetrical ideology upon the Universe, an ideology as we are in these bodies, as if we are looking into a mirror, or at each other. Symmetry is just one facet (or dimension) of a multidimensional Universe. There is also direction, movement, as in walking forward (not stasis seeking, pauses becoming a part of movement), a sort of balanced "off-balance," so to speak, our fronts and backs not similar or symmetrical... a direction of movement that is itself multidimensional, in a particular way of the Universe, expansion, basic physics even, but also mystical... expansion in a multidimensional way...
Fitting "mechanical" and "living" into the same box may be merely a symmetrical imposition (making the world into our own static image of ourselves) upon something that is forever expanding and changing in some Universally particular ways...
There is some play here, with words, in an attempt to speak of what is always beyond words… We cannot "grasp" it, but sometimes it grasps us...
Where I am coming from is what is important. Entering deeper into and reaching further out of where I am coming from, always further and always deeper, outward and inward, like breathing, in and out, never one without the other…
What is important is sharing with others out of our unique ways actual and real movement, rather than digging in or defending. If, in such sharing, we find some common understandings that move us even a little further upon our separate and similar journeys of awakening, deeper into a common world, that's great. As women, men, humans, as beings born into an Earth-centered life together, formed out of all of the myriad ways, shapes and species of life co-evolving together, we already have a common path we don't need to invent, only re-discover. It is a path that we engage best through surrendering to it. Surrendering into what we already are, together, is the challenge, perhaps the greatest challenge that humans face now.
In most Buddhist perspectives there is what might be called an Ultimate Context, what some modern astrophysicists might say is a Universe without center or boundary, beyond all mathematical (or otherwise) concept. And in such Buddhist (and other) traditions there is actually a way, via self-aware, sentient (human) consciousness or "mind" (not the typical western understanding of mind, though...), to step out of all conceptualizations and awaken into participation as a part of that Context, or Creation.
John Fridinger
Silver City, NM
Winter 2006/2007
Western thinkers tend to approach the unknown through rigidly shaped boundaries or “edges” that are mostly defined by what is already “known,” forever forcing new experience and observations into pre-existing concepts. One way to describe this kind of thinking is that it occurs inside of “boxes.” Western philosophy has become a great, complex edifice of boxes, where innovative thinking is most often used to define, defend, and extend territory, making already huge, ponderous intellectual contraptions merely larger, more rigid, and more complex. At the core of this approach is a familiar and prevalent collection of concepts (boxes) that extend rationally created and defended disconnection (delusion, illusion) was, as Descartes intended, a very rational justification of a “Self as opposed to Other" mode of existence, a mode that has since dominated the world.
“Other” becomes all others and all else, everything that is beyond ownership, control or able to be contained as a part of self-identity, with various interweaving levels of “Us, Them and That” becoming all the many diverse ways we have today to define, contain and determine complex, mechanistic, and highly alienated societies. What I am attempting to point at, without going into detail, is a whole underlying collection of establishment beliefs and ideologies that deeply justify our present society's immense conflict with nature, life, and self. It is a fundamental separation that essentially enables humanity's mostly unconscious destruction of the environment and the world. At its foundation is an immense human alienation from other individuals, peoples, life forms and the world as a whole that justifies, in the most fundamental ways, ALL wars at all levels, as well as all institutionalized social, environmental and cultural inequities.
Descartes’ thinking extended out of a pre-existing separation that was, in the European context, already well established in a major way through the Catholic church. All he did was turn it into a science, partly as a means to take over from the Church, in the same way that the bourgeoisie/merchant class, using Cartesian thinking, took over from the aristocracy and began what is now called Capitalism. Present day science, commerce and politics in most of their prevalent forms are deeply rooted in that original (European) institutionalized, Christian church established, separation from the Whole. Most Cartesian/ Atheist/ Agnostic arguments against traditional, institutionalized church philosophies and beliefs are basically arguing against a straw dog. Both sides in such arguments merely reinforce the many misleading views that we and the world are suffering from most acutely now, views based on a very fundamental and false belief in separation.
Those who argue for a mechanistic Universe ignore their own breathing, pulsing life and consciousness in order to do so, using twisting shifts of logic, a sort of logic that cannot really be "argued against,” so to speak, because to do so would be to merely accept and validate the underlying terms of the argument. It is an argument that insists upon the very nature of the argument itself to be the only means to fact and truth, and dominates simply by its continuing, emphatically maintained existence. Anyone who seeks for the truth in other ways and engages in such arguments will alway and merely justify the argument as valid. Inadvertently, they help the holder of the argument to continue the argument ad-infinitum, an argument that the establishment arguer strongly identifies his very existence with. This, at a basic level, is the primary purpose, to continue on identified as the One thinking such logic, in the continuation of an abiding faith in a fundamentally "egoist" self as being absolutely separate from all of the rest of existence. It is a circular kind of thinking that leads essentially nowhere, that is, always back into separation, with only some occasional change in outer appearances and language.
Interestingly, a mechanistic universe only exists in the consciousness of (someone) standing outside of the Universe, perceiving "It." That is just one of the peculiar effects of Cartesian thinking. In other words, Descartes replaced the "God standing outside of the universe" concept of the alienated/institutionalized Christian church with Himself, and all Cartesian thinkers since have been expanding upon that event, culturally instilling and institutionalizing that split, and reinforcing "Man as God" into all levels of Western society and Western thinking.
Letting go of "consciousness of other," the basis for all identities of separation, and learning to become more and more comfortable with “simply consciousness" welcomes a journey beyond rigidly held concepts of self, to a place where strong and healthy boundaries become means of perception and exchange, and ways to experience and embrace distinctions and diversity, rather than rigid structures of identity whose sole purpose is to establish territory. In that sort of journey identity is experienced in the context of consciousness, interaction, connection, interdependence, and relationship, rather than on ideological peripheries, rigid (unhealthy) boundaries, strongly held positions and mere appearances. Self, other, and unity is discovered to be an interweaving, creative process, a process that we are merely and incredibly participant in.
What is not often realized is that the Universe contains mechanistic logic, but mechanistic logic does not contain the Universe. To believe that the only reliable method we have for making sense is the scientific method assumes that sense is only and merely a logical event. The foolishness, in ultimate sense, of all mechanistic arguments against a Universe not experienced is that what is argued “against” is what is not known (as in, truly not experienced), which merely and forever (for as long as such an argument continues to be central to the identity of the arguer) sets it up so that arguers for a mechanistic Universe absolutely cannot experience anything beyond what they have already experienced. Labeling a box, or a collection of boxes, the Universe doesn't make it so.
In Cartesian theology (because of course Cartesian thinking is a theology, most of all…) "Man becomes God..." With some men, of course, then becoming "More God" than "others." Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Bush, and other similar persons are a perfect example of this belief system taken to it's most insane, unfeeling and disconnected extremes.
Before Descartes, it was the Church that gave the "rational" and theological underpinnings to this sort of event, in the form of kings, emperors, aristocracy, etc. The East had and has it's own problems with this human tendency, of course, in similar and different ways, but it is we in the West who have taken it to the extremes that are presently responsible for most of the present day major discontinuities between humans, and between humans and the natural world.
It could also be that we are upon an amazing journey (and creation story) of separation and return, and out of the return something actually new becoming in the Universe... collecting together a multitude of journeys and a multitude of stories, none of them completed, and yet within all of them is the possibility of weaving back together, in consciousness, so to speak, the reality of here and there, you and I, them and us, and all of it, as not ever separate to begin with. We have gone away and now we return, through a waking up to what has always been...
Waking up is the path, in other words, with the going and returning becoming, through the rejoining of what was never apart, a new act of creation at the level of the Universe as a whole, enabled through the possibilities of a human consciousness participating in what has always been, on-going... Creation.
Shared metaphors is, in a real sense I think, what religion in it's restored essence is about. This is not an attempt to debate religion, but rather to suggest that in the end all language that is not of a so-called practical nature, here and now, regarding survival and concrete things that we might be pointing to for each other, or as a way of sharing our efforts to manipulate substance (trees into shelter, iron into tools, silicon into solar panels, seeds into food…), all the rest of language is perhaps metaphor for what is always beyond conceptual grasp, but also real, in a very different sense of "real." Pointing fingers, so to speak. In that sense, what has become religion can, when it is not what we have turned it into, be a way for groups of people to share a common experience through shared metaphors of what can only ever be pointed at. To experience such, we must even let go of pointing..., step beyond the end of the finger... beyond the thought of ourselves... simply enter...
Regarding pragmatism and idealism, it may be that there is a way in all of this to weave these approaches together, into something else... Like my bones and my flesh, two different principals (hard and soft, simplistically), the pragmatist and the idealist woven together, with an assortment of other differences, into life, human... and not just human, but unique individuals. Then it is no longer about choosing between, but rather, choice becomes something else, that is, to join or not to join...
And if the (ongoing, eternal) choice is to join, there begins a new sort of journey, one in which we begin to discover how it is we are able to act out of the whole, as individuals. A kind of global spectrum of possibility that becomes aware through each of us awakening, separately and together....
Arguing with dogmatic belief, it's structures and ideology, including the ideology of a "separate" so-called supreme being (Cartesian thinking before Descartes was born...), recalls the "Briar Rabbit" stories from when I was a kid, and the "tar baby... " The more we argue with all of that, the more we get stuck in it, stuck in our own arguments with it, and/or stuck in "it" through our own arguments, so to speak, and what's the point? Why not, instead, go on with our own journey into (becoming) the mystery, become part of creation so to speak, and save our energy for those we meet along that sort of a path..?
What we think we defeat, in the sense of overcoming and/or destroying, we become, changing merely the appearance is all... Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi taught such things. Sort of the mystical dimensions of non-violence, in other words.
We can't, ego-intentionally, change another person's beliefs, so leave it, go with our own journey into freedom from dogma (whether it be scientific, economic, political, religious or personal dogma), and a direct (and growing) experience of mystery… Let go of trying to capture what is forever the mystery (or not), into concepts, and allow “it” to express through us, moment to moment, life itself awakening…
But, and of course, stay engaged. The people and circumstances we might want to change are a part of the world. We don't need to seek them out. They are in our face all over the place. Engagement, dialog, the opportunity is all around us, we don't have to make it happen, just step up when and as much we can, make our choices around time, energy, and personal needs, and engage. By living in the world as it is (even as much as we sometimes "hate" and despair of the way as it is...) while on such a path, well, maybe something will change on its own, so to speak...
Otherwise, our ways of thinking in terms of an "either/or" dichotomy, “us and them,” just keep getting rehabilitated, on and on, always with the underlying assumption that it is the only way to perceive, experience, or communicate. Dualism as our religion, seen as the only perceptive reality, eternally taking "either/or" as far as it will go, and when it no longer entertains or distracts us, or justifies our competitive and fearful relationships with each other and the world, we attempt to lift it into another level of either/or, with the new, bigger box still and forever posing (opposing) itself against all that seems to lie outside of it...
In a way it is sort of like when the capitalists started growing their hair long in the 70's, and playing John Lennon on Musak tapes in the 90's. Bigger and bigger boxes perhaps, but the same (fearful, alienated) values shape those boxes, along with the assertion that all that does not fall within said boxes does not exist, or has no value. With "bigger" in this case being a relative term, mostly based on comparing apples and oranges.
The dilemma we now face, particularly here in the U.S., has more to do with what is the context and what is contained within the context. Machines exist as a part of the living Universe- I drive one almost every day... but the fuel injection system in my truck (or my truck, or the interstate highway system) does not contain the living Universe. The machine (or reasoning mind) is a part of (and serves) a living Universe, except when it (we, I...) "think" our ways separate from it. "Separate" is the problem. And paradoxically, as in some understandings of Buddhism, separation is also our way home, like "stepping stones," with something new "becoming" in the Universe, in the process... a never ending journey.
Our machines are (obviously?) an extension of the logical mind, and we try to impose that logic (and our machines) on the Universe as a whole, which is an absurd effort, in the end. Logical mind is a part of greater mind, but we have identified with the actions and creations of logical mind to such an extent that we are no longer, or barely able to recognize ourselves in all the many ways we are, and are a part of, so much that is greater, infinite, infinite mind, even...
Part of our logical approach is that we attempt symmetry, we try to impose a symmetrical ideology upon the Universe, an ideology as we are in these bodies, as if we are looking into a mirror, or at each other. Symmetry is just one facet (or dimension) of a multidimensional Universe. There is also direction, movement, as in walking forward (not stasis seeking, pauses becoming a part of movement), a sort of balanced "off-balance," so to speak, our fronts and backs not similar or symmetrical... a direction of movement that is itself multidimensional, in a particular way of the Universe, expansion, basic physics even, but also mystical... expansion in a multidimensional way...
Fitting "mechanical" and "living" into the same box may be merely a symmetrical imposition (making the world into our own static image of ourselves) upon something that is forever expanding and changing in some Universally particular ways...
There is some play here, with words, in an attempt to speak of what is always beyond words… We cannot "grasp" it, but sometimes it grasps us...
Where I am coming from is what is important. Entering deeper into and reaching further out of where I am coming from, always further and always deeper, outward and inward, like breathing, in and out, never one without the other…
What is important is sharing with others out of our unique ways actual and real movement, rather than digging in or defending. If, in such sharing, we find some common understandings that move us even a little further upon our separate and similar journeys of awakening, deeper into a common world, that's great. As women, men, humans, as beings born into an Earth-centered life together, formed out of all of the myriad ways, shapes and species of life co-evolving together, we already have a common path we don't need to invent, only re-discover. It is a path that we engage best through surrendering to it. Surrendering into what we already are, together, is the challenge, perhaps the greatest challenge that humans face now.
In most Buddhist perspectives there is what might be called an Ultimate Context, what some modern astrophysicists might say is a Universe without center or boundary, beyond all mathematical (or otherwise) concept. And in such Buddhist (and other) traditions there is actually a way, via self-aware, sentient (human) consciousness or "mind" (not the typical western understanding of mind, though...), to step out of all conceptualizations and awaken into participation as a part of that Context, or Creation.
John Fridinger
Silver City, NM
Winter 2006/2007
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Change is real, control is an illusion, and participation is the only way home.
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