Zen Buddhism – emphasising the transitory nature and ultimate emptiness of everything, Zen can appear at once peaceful, baffling, wise, nihilistic, and downright surreal to western eyes.
Martin Heidegger – the modern German philosopher said western philosophy had ignored the issue of BEING ITSELF, and he attempted to construct an account of existence from scratch with his 'phenomenology'.
Is the Zen concept of “enlightenment” the same as Heidegger’s “authentic being”, or what?
The Five Precepts slideshow that the Ven. Dr. Giac Hanh presented to the Chanh Hoa Buddhist Youth's Dhamma Class at the Compassion Meditation Center on February 12, 2012.
The Five Precepts slideshow that the Ven. Dr. Giac Hanh presented to the Chanh Hoa Buddhist Youth's Dhamma Class at the Compassion Meditation Center on February 12, 2012.
Buddhist philosophy in brief and con-sized form so that students feel easy to grasp the topic , especially slides has been made keeping in concern to nursing education so that it can work as beneficial resource for nursing student and for others .
This is a work that I made in 10th grade about Kant and his theory. Portuguese version available. I hope you like it and share it.
P.S.: In the biography, instead of actually saying it, we did a little role playing of an interview to the philosopher in which on member is the interviewer and the other is Kant. While we were doing the interview the following songs were playing:
- U Can't Touch This
- Just give me a Reason (for the more emotional part)
When it's done well, it has a great impact in the class room. The script is at the end of the presentation.
Hope you like it and please share.
Confucius' teachings, preserved in the Analects, focused on creating ethical models of family and public interaction, and setting educational standards.
Stoicism is a school of thought in ancient Greek philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium. As is well known, because Zeno taught in a school that had a stoa poikile or “painted porch”, his philosophy came to be known as Stoicism. Zeno believed that the world is ruled by a divine plan and that everything in nature, including humans, exists for a reason. And for the Stoics, the most important expression of the notion of “divine plan” is the belief that whatever happens, happens for a reason. Hence, for the Stoics, there are no accidents, and that all must be accepted as part of the plan.
Buddhist philosophy in brief and con-sized form so that students feel easy to grasp the topic , especially slides has been made keeping in concern to nursing education so that it can work as beneficial resource for nursing student and for others .
This is a work that I made in 10th grade about Kant and his theory. Portuguese version available. I hope you like it and share it.
P.S.: In the biography, instead of actually saying it, we did a little role playing of an interview to the philosopher in which on member is the interviewer and the other is Kant. While we were doing the interview the following songs were playing:
- U Can't Touch This
- Just give me a Reason (for the more emotional part)
When it's done well, it has a great impact in the class room. The script is at the end of the presentation.
Hope you like it and please share.
Confucius' teachings, preserved in the Analects, focused on creating ethical models of family and public interaction, and setting educational standards.
Stoicism is a school of thought in ancient Greek philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium. As is well known, because Zeno taught in a school that had a stoa poikile or “painted porch”, his philosophy came to be known as Stoicism. Zeno believed that the world is ruled by a divine plan and that everything in nature, including humans, exists for a reason. And for the Stoics, the most important expression of the notion of “divine plan” is the belief that whatever happens, happens for a reason. Hence, for the Stoics, there are no accidents, and that all must be accepted as part of the plan.
Right and Wrong...A Zen Story To Reflect UponOH TEIK BIN
A Power Point Presentation of a Zen Story with a profound spiritual message.
Spiritual Teachings of love, compassion and forgiveness underlie the story.
Taoism, Shinto, Confucianism, China, Japan, Nature, The Tao, Kami, Confucius, Chinese Culture, Chinese beliefs, Wu-Wei, social order, society, sociology, The I Ching, Lao Tzu, Mencius, Chinese psychological orientation, Western psychological orientation,
Raymond Kuiper - Zen and The Art of Zabbix Template Design | ZabConf2016Zabbix
Zabbix monitoring solution can help bring balance to your organisation's IT landscape. However, the success greatly depends on the templates you use to setup your monitoring system. As any Zabbix veteran will tell you, the default templates don't really suffice for any setup other than a proof-of-concept. How then do you set about creating your own templates? Following practical examples, we'll discuss some of the design decisions that need to be made to achieve template perfection.
Are you caught IN THE MATRIX? - Nonduality
#matrix #Caught-matrix #Nonduality #Caught_matrix #Caught #Non-duality
https://bittube.tv/post/5c46bebc-826f-4f78-aa66-f9d560361cd5
https://odysee.com/@periodic-reset-of-civilizations:c/Are-you-caught-IN-THE-MATRIX----Nonduality:2
https://tube.midov.pl/w/fopY7x4cB4ppGDUMfiPbEX
https://www.bitchute.com/video/LXOAsbHJne1r/
All the platforms I Am on:
https://steemit.com/links/@resetciviliz/link-s
▶ BITCOIN
34c3XCeSyoi9DPRks867KL7GVD7tGVcxnH
▶ ETHEREUM
0xAc1FBaEBaCc83D332494B55123F5493a113cE457
▶ TEESPRING
https://periodic-reset.creator-spring.com
An overview of the positive role of anxiety, and how the work of modern European philosophers can inform a unique approach to helping people face up to, and therefore work through, their fear of fear
It's best to avoid anxiety, or is it? In this presentation, originally given in September 2010 at the Vingsted conference centre in Denmark, Professor Emmy van Deurzen, from the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, draws on a philosophical tradition and her own experience as a psychotherapist, to show when anxiety can be a guide to what needs to be fixed in one's life to reach greater wellbeing.
Who are we? If we are not a thing, what are we? Who is talking when I say “I”.
Is there any present-day approach to the self which takes into account the naturalistic claim without losing the self, its existence and its durability?
Is there any contemporary account of the self which let us defend the narrative and cultural production of the self without converting the self into a fake, into something strictly decided by others either culturally or evolutionarily.
A response to these challenges can be found by mixing a phenomenological and an hermeneutical approach.
Finding the Door: Falling away from our authentic self is thus experienced as a general phenomenon in life, to which every facet of human culture is vulnerable. Its convenience, generality, and particularly its effects in the philosophical traditions, are structural. For if this falling is a consequence of our absorption in the Other, it must be just as much a part of our ontological structure as the fact that we generally fail to find ourselves. Thus the tendency towards falling is an existential characteristic of default human beingness.
The Illuminati Have Their Work Cut Out: Why Social Control Is Harder Than You...noiseTM
Conspiracy theory-style thinking is now thoroughly mainstream, whether coming from the political left, the political right, the movies we watch or the internet guff we read (and also watch). While it's great to be questioning the status quo and powers that be, our common ideas of how society and social control work are so riddled with old myths and cliches that they can hardly be called "woke"...
Hmmm Squad co-founder Thomas Morton talks about Cold War myths of mind control, outdated psychology experiments, the flawed and messy nature of social science research and why we should be much more suspicious of social media than "The MSM" (mainstream media).
"I DON'T QUITE EVER FEEL AS HELPLESS AS I DID THEN": A STUDY OF PERCEPTIONS OF CONTROL IN WORKPLACE STRESS
For Hmmm Squad's 8th birthday (thereabouts), long-absent founder member Thomas "Noise" Morton (me) returns from his travels in exotic Halesowen and Worcester to tell you about what he (I) has (have) been up to: Namely a piece of original research into experiences of stress in the workplace, done as part of an MSc in psychology.
Feeling in control - or not - at work is a known factor in workplace stress. But the details of exactly what is going on with this and why remain uncertain. Troubled by the niggling feeling that the standard accounts of the link between lack of control at work and stress-related illness just weren't quite doing justice to the actual experience of this, I set out to interview five people who had taken time off work due to stress, to get their side of the story - and then painstakingly analysed their accounts for common themes to see if this did indeed verify the standard psychological models or rather suggest more research was needed in certain directions (Spoiler alert: It was the latter, of course).
Heuristics: The Pitfalls of Mental Models, Maps and TropesnoiseTM
~or~
What do political ideologies, TV cliches, conspiracy theories, SatNav and my own sense of recurring failure have in common?
Models, maps, schemas, stereotypes - we can't function without these things and yet they often lead us astray.
Seven years since Thomas delvered the first ever Hmmm Squad talk, he will bow out with a rather rambling hmmm on just how fundamental such things are to understanding pretty much all human social activity - along with their less rational sibings, the tropes, memes or fashionable ideas that float about, spread and get adopted almost unconsciously.
How Dead Is Philosophy ~or~ What Do You Imagine Philosophy Actually Is?noiseTM
High-profile science champions such as Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye The Science Guy have all gone on record to have a pop at philosophy as past its sell-by date, now that we have SCIENCE to tell us the truth about the world – even going as far as to proclaim the centuries-old discipline, like jazz or guitar rock*, is dead.
Doctor of philosophy James Wakefield and ex-philosophy teacher Thomas Morton have found themselves on the wrong end of this frustrating pub conversation and, frankly, take umbrage at what seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference in what science and philosophy respectively do.
In this talk they intend to gather up their "beefs" and air them – in the process outlining a personal take on what philosophy is all about, while making a case for why it is not going away and is worth paying attention to. Even for scientists.
(*perhaps tellingly at least one of the speakers listens to both)
The Psychodynamic Model - An Introduction to FreudnoiseTM
Sigmund Freud was the first to see mental illness in purely psychological terms (rather than physical or spiritual causes). From unconscious drives, "ego defences" and child development to the idea of the "talking cure" - the origins of modern psychotherapy and counselling.
GOOD FOR WHAT? A sceptical look at the rationalising of morality.noiseTM
Thinking about morality is one of the more practical pursuits in philosophy – it can be, and is, applied in “real life” all the time, in law and politics, on ethics boards and in codes of conduct everywhere.
Which works ok up to a point - but despite thousands of years of systematic thought by some of the best brains in history (and believe me they are THOROUGH) there is still no final consensus on how we can define what is right and what is wrong.
Most systems of morality focus on trying to turn it into something rational, objective and universal – to get rid of emotion and the personal out of moral choices.
And yet isn’t “evil” just “stuff we REALLY don’t like?”
Thomas Morton will talk about why the holy grail of a purely rational morality may be a dead end – that morality is necessarily centred on human wants and feelings; and any attempt to divorce ethics from empathy is never going to be adequate.
The Truth About Truth - A Nietzsche Feature (Darwin Festival version)noiseTM
Nietzsche is known for harping on about the inevitable break down of old moral/religious values in a post-Darwinian world. But often overlooked are his hugely influential thoughts on the nature of truth and certainty in a world that is essentially meaningless.
A review of what always seemed to me the most intriguing case for the idea extraterrestrial intelligence visited the earth in ancient times. Never mind Erich von Daniken, whose enthusiasm for the mysterious played fast and loose with interpretation and historical context... here's the Nommo.
SPECULATIONS ON HIVE MINDS - How do lots of things become one thing? Including ruminations on ants, weird sea creatures, consciousness and (briefly) MASSIVE ROBOTS.
Infinity: Discovering it, taming it and... Cantor!noiseTM
A mathematical grappling with infinity from Greek discovery to German insanity.
Infinity in mathematics can be both a serious problem and a powerful tool - it can lead to mind blowing conclusions and threaten to undermine logic itslef.
Where mathematical infinity began, how it was used, right up to Cantor's unusual ideas about infinity and God... and beyond.
Why I Love Wittgenstein #1: Private Language and SolipsismnoiseTM
How the iconic philosopher's brilliantly subtle and original thoughts on language can be used to dispel a two-thousand year old philosophical problem. Possibly a misappropriation and possibly an oversimplification, but what the gee-whizz. I love Wittgenstein.
Was the image of Santa Claus really created by Coca-Cola? How come St Nicholas, a Middle-Eastern saint, is supposed to live in Lapland with elves and reindeer? Who is this freaky demonic Krampus figure that some Europeans have hanging around with him, and how does he fit into things? The roots of our cuddley, familiar Father Christmas may be stranger and more ancient than many realise...
Weird Tales of Cosmic Horror: The World and Work of HP LovecraftnoiseTM
Self-confessed fan-boys Chris Hose and Thomas Morton delve into Lovecraft's gibbering, eldritch world to ask why a writer of pulp short stories is held in such reverence. The surprising philosophical depths of his world view and his wide-reaching influence on modern pop-culture.
Hmmm Squad regulars will have heard the name often whispered furtively by acolytes lurking on the threshold - here's your chance to find out why. Biscuits, beverages, mind-paralysing horror, etc.
Night Visitors, Alien Abduction and Sleep ParalysisnoiseTM
How a weird but common malfunction of the transition between sleeping and waking states may be responsible for terrifying experiences - from myths of demonic visitations to modern accounts of alien encounters.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Embracing GenAI - A Strategic ImperativePeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Palestine last event orientationfvgnh .pptxRaedMohamed3
An EFL lesson about the current events in Palestine. It is intended to be for intermediate students who wish to increase their listening skills through a short lesson in power point.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
Francesca Gottschalk - How can education support child empowerment.pptxEduSkills OECD
Francesca Gottschalk from the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation presents at the Ask an Expert Webinar: How can education support child empowerment?
TESDA TM1 REVIEWER FOR NATIONAL ASSESSMENT WRITTEN AND ORAL QUESTIONS WITH A...
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism... and Heidegger!
1. An introduction to Zen
Buddhism... and Heidegger!
~or~
Two accounts of AUTHENTIC BEING (Because
it’s not difficult enough introducing just one
scratch-head philosophical world view)
2. The Buddha
• Siddhartha Gautama, aka the Buddha, lived
about 500BCE, in North East India or Nepal.
• A prince, shielded from the outside world, at
29 left his palace and saw poverty, age,
sickness and death and had a bit of a crisis.
• Realised suffering is everywhere, left his
family, renounced his wealth, took up the life
of an ascetic, travelling, hanging out with yogic
hermits and begging on the streets in search of
an answer.
• Unsatisfied, he pushed his asceticism further
and further, starving himself to the point he
collapsed while bathing and almost drowned.
• Fed up and still no closer to finding an answer,
he ate a decent meal, sat under a tree and
vowed not to get up until he had found
enlightenment.
3. • After 49 days under the tree, at the age of 35, Buddha is said to have
attained enlightenment.
• He realised The Four Noble Truths, which say that life is suffering, but
there are steps we can take to free ourselves from it.
• Mastering the noble truths leads to Nirvana, a liberated state of peace
free from fear, ignorance, greed and hatred, in which you cast off the
boundaries of the mind – and also personal ego/identity.
4. Important Buddhist themes
• Balance – Buddhism is the “Middle Way”.
• Non-attachment – everything is transitory.
• No desire – desire is the cause of suffering.
• No ego – you are transitory too. Much of our
suffering comes from clinging on to ego. The
mind creates it.
• Oneness – we are all part of everything and
everything is part of us.
5. Zen Buddhism
• When Buddhism reached
China it merged with the
native Taoist philosophy and
the result was Zen Buddhism,
which also flourished in
Vietnam, Korea and Japan.
• “Zen” derives from “Chan”,
which literally means
meditation.
6. • Zen is one of the most extreme forms
of Buddhism in rejecting the authority
of dogma and scripture – that is a
form of attachment.
• The stress is on meditation – and
mindfulness, paying attention to the
moment, the act of being, being-
through-doing.
• Teaching is passed directly, personally,
from master to student.
• The true nature of things cannot be
explained in writings or grasped
logically.
• Everything is ultimately nothing, and
cannot be expressed in words.
7. Zen koans
• Zen koans are little stories or quotes designed to confuse, to
shock the listener/reader out of everyday thinking.
• They allude to/point towards enlightenment rather than
stating it directly, as that’s impossible.
• Hence why they often appear surreal or nonsensical.
• Eg...
8. Taoism
• Taoism predates Zen, and is a native
Chinese philosophy.
• Key themes include removing oneself
from everyday society and politics and
living in harmony with nature.
• The principle of “non-action” – or
“letting be”
• Tao = The “Way”
• “The Way that can be spoken of is not
the constant Way/The name that can
be named is not the constant name”
9. Heidegger
• Martin Heidegger (1899-
1976) was a modern German
philosopher.
• Not a household name, but
hugely influential, especially
on Existentialism.
• Most famous work: Being
and Time – sought to answer
“What is the question of the
meaning of Being?”
10. Phenomenology
• A school of philosophy that sought to a return to first-hand experience –
the “phenomena” themselves – to explain the world.
• To chuck out tried old traditional philosophical/metaphysical concepts
(mind/body, reason/experience, free will/determinism) and start again.
• Heidegger’s mentor Edmund Husserl thought philosophy had hit a dead
end and proposed we go back to basics – “bracket out” what we think we
know, go back to first-hand experience, and build up an explanation of
the world from there.
11. • Heidegger took on this emphasis on
analysing first-hand experience. But
where Husserl focussed on what we
can know, Heidegger focussed on
what we are.
• He said western philosophy since the
Greeks had been so concerned with
knowledge and ethics and so on, it
had ignored the question of being –
what IS being, what is it to BE?
• He was an iconoclast – he wanted
nothing more than “a destruction of
the history of ontology
(philosophical ideas about what is)”
– a clean break with traditional
metaphysics and its traditional
pitfalls.
12. • But he wrote like this:
“The projection of its (Dasein’s) ownmost-potentiality-
for-Being has been delivered over to the Fact of its
thrownness into the ‘there’. Has not Dasein’s Being
become more enigmatical now that we have
explicated the existential constitution of the Being of
the ‘there’ in the sense of the thrown projection?
It has indeed.”
• Key term: Dasein = The ‘there-being’ or the
‘being that is there’ – describes us, or a
consciousness in the world: “The being for
whom its own Being is an issue”
13. Common Themes
• Why do some think Heidegger is Western
philosophy’s best bet at establishing a dialogue
with Eastern philosopy?
14. 1! Fallenness and ego/self
HDGR: Fallenness
In everyday life Dasein becomes one of, and
interchangeable with, people ‘there’, hence
turning away from the ownmost-ness of its being.
Dasein disowns the full extent of its possibilities,
moves away from itself, becomes alienated from
itself. It lets the ‘them’ convince it ‘they’ hold the
secret to life, and the fullest and most genuine
possibilities of being-in-the-world.
Falling is not a state of rest. It is a ‘turbulent motion’
in which Dasien becomes entangled in itself. It is
still a way of being, but a way alienated from
Dasein’s true ‘ownmost possibility of being in the
world’.
15. 1! Fallenness and ego/self
ZEN: Ego/Self
In attachment to objects, beliefs and ambitions, vanity and desires, one can
never be at peace and attain true understanding:
“After birth… people learn bad habits from others in the course of their
seeing and hearing them… Getting fixated on what others say they turn
the all-important unique Buddha mind into a monster, mulling over
useless things, repeating the same thoughts over and over again… Going
from one hellish state to another, from one animalistic state to another,
from one ghostly state to another, from darkness to darkness in an
endless vicious cycle, you go on experiencing infinite misery for the bad
things you have done, with never a break… As soon as a single thought
gets fixated on something, you become ordinary mortals. All delusion is
like this. You pick up on something confronting you, turn the Buddha
mind into a monster because of your own self-importance, and go astray
on account of your own ego…” (17th
century master Bankei in Cleary,
2001, pp.4-5)
16. 1! Fallenness and ego/self
For both Heidegger and Zen/Taosim our everyday mode of being is a
tranquillised state, a mode in which we live our lives blind to, or fleeing
from, the true nature of our being.
We are tempted into this state not so much by conscious choice but by an
understandable response to the world we find ourselves in, and the
beings we find ourselves with (our ‘thrownness’ in Heidegger). However,
this is not our primordial and authentic state. It is the opposite of
authentic being, the opposite of enlightenment, a trap into which we fall
and must struggle out of as best we can if we wish to grasp our true
nature and potential.
17. 2! Nothing and emptiness,
uncanniness and bliss
HDGR: The nothing and uncanniness
In Heidegger ‘notness’ defines what is. Without nothing, there is no definite
‘here’ or ‘there’. Nothing ‘founds’ the world:
“Far from being a negation of all things, the nothing is the possibility of
things: This possibility, in Heidegger’s interpretation, is the world itself.”
(King, 2001, pp. 94)
In face of this void, oblivion, infinity, Dasein feels ‘uncanniness’ (unheimlich)
– and ‘angst’ in the face of the truth of its own being-in-the-world and
possibilities - because the accompanying sense of insignificance is
crushing. Dasein flees to the familiar and self-assured company of the
‘them’, where it can “dwell in tranquillised familiarity”.
18. 2! Nothing and emptiness,
uncanniness and bliss
Zen: Emptiness and bliss
In Zen, as well as Taoism, the ultimate reality is nothingness, or ‘emptiness’ -
the world is empty; the ‘nothing’ is implicit in everything.
We are born with a pure ‘Buddha mind’ that is already at one with this
ultimate nothingness, but through everyday living retreat into a limited,
circular, habitual way of being that is hard to break out of.
When we glimpse the infinite emptiness of the world from this state it is
scary and daunting. We feel insignificant because we realise that our own
being is essentially empty, and our ego groundless. But it is in this empty
state that we find authentic enlightened bliss. The uncanniness we feel in
the face of the fundamental impermanence and emptiness of the world,
in Zen, may be transcended and transformed into bliss when we grasp
our freedom and the true nature of our being.
19. 3! Impermanence and being-
towards-death
HDGR: Being-towards-death
Our death is always with us, as part of our existence, but we
ignore it, run away from it and forget it. Our death is our
limit, the thing that makes our being and our possibilities
finite. If it were not for this limit, we would have no
impetus to do anything, no reason to stop procrastinating
and get things done. Indeed, if our being were infinite, it is
debatable that we would have consciousness at all.
Without the possibility of negation (notness) our Being would
not be an issue for us. Our death is absolutely our own,
and the realisation of this points to the insurmountable
gulf between ourselves and others. Our being is unique and
isolated, no matter how much we lose ourselves in the
they-self. This points us towards our own Being, and
hence authenticity.
20. 3! Impermanence and being-
towards-death
ZEN: Impermanence
It was the realisation of the universality of disease, suffering
and death that first set the Buddha on ‘the path’. The
realisation of our own impermanence is a pointer towards
enlightenment.
But in Zen the concept of impermanence is wider and not only
personal – everything is transitory, everything is in
constant flux.
Though we may experience everything as multitudinous and
finite, the ultimate reality is the infinite. Everything is one,
and everything is nothing. Since everything is essentially
infinite and empty, ultimately we are “not born” and do
not die.
21. 4! Action, tools and use
HDGR: The ready-to-hand
In our everyday existence we do not passively view our
environment, we interact with it. Everything ultimately relates
back to Dasein – it is impossible for Dasein to comprehend
something that is not in relation to itself. Everything is defined
by this context.
A hammer exists because Dasein has created it in order to
manipulate its environment to shelter and comfort itself. But,
through its use, the hammer disappears for Dasein. We do
not contemplate our tools while we use them. It is only when
these tools break down, or are not to hand, that they become
an issue for Dasein, and Dasein really appreciates what they
are and what they do. One may thoughtlessly drive back and
forth to work every day of the week, yet when the car breaks
down, it, or a suitable substitute, is suddenly the focus of
concentrated attention. Again notness defines what is.
22. 4! Action, tools and use
Zen: Archery and One Hand Clapping
In Zen, tools also disappear with use – it’s said a good archer, for
example, must be his bow and arrow. In Zen this is
transcending the ego and traversing the void between the
self and the world.
The essential nature of notness in utility is also a familiar theme
in both Taoism and Zen. Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching
reads:
“Knead the clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing
therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have use of the
vessel. Cut out doors and windows in order to make a room.
Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand , and you
will have use of the room.” (Lau, 1963, pp.15)
The nonsense of “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is
one of the most famous Zen problems (or koans) in the
western world. Things are what they are only in relation to
other things – again everything is defined by context.
23. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
HDGR: Authenticity
Authenticity in Heidegger can be summed up as the recognition and
unification of all of Dasein’s constituent parts. Dasein recognises its
being as a whole - how we find ourselves in the world (past), our
everyday ‘now’ and our possibilities (future). This is one unified structure
and when Dasein realises this to its full extent, then Dasein is authentic.
What makes this possible is “Being towards one’s ownmost, distinctive
potentiality-for-Being.” (Heidegger, 1962, pp.372)
Being authentically cannot be reduced to particular opinions or behaviour
patterns - It is not that one is either authentic or fallen, because being is
not static. One is always moving between the two.
24. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
Zen: Enlightenment
While Zen and Taoist enlightenment certainly involves a grasping
of one’s being as a whole, it is not just this.
The concept of enlightenment would seem to go beyond
unifying of the elements of ones being and involves the
unifying of everything, the grasping of the totality of being in
general.
25. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
Is the Zen concept of “enlightenment” the same as Heidegger’s
“authentic being”?
In Heidegger there still exists a void between one’s own Being
and that of others. In enlightenment one is said to transcend
the self and become one with everything, including the void.
Furthermore, Zen enlightenment is said to be contented bliss.
For better or worse, authentic being does not come with such
an unambiguously enthusiastic recommendation.
26. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
Being and Time was only the first part of Heidegger’s project to
clarify the “question of the meaning of being”.
He only got as far as ‘clarifying’ Dasein’s being.
No second part was ever written because the questions raised
by Being and Time were too many and too problematic for a
simple ‘second half’. Instead Heidegger began to turn towards
art and poetry as possible candidates for a ‘language of
Being’ - He had found the language of everyday things was
simply not adequate to talk about Being.
It is almost certainly no co-incidence that in the Zen tradition it is
said that enlightenment, the true nature of things, the
Buddha mind, the essence of Zen and so on, cannot be
adequately explained in words.