On Mannequins, Portraits and Karma: A Prelude to Ethics

Here we begin with a question put to your memory. Have you ever seen a portrait where the eyes of a person being portrayed seem to follow you? As you move from one side to another the eyes follow as if the person was actually looking at you, or so it seems. Some might even think it creepy. Now, have you ever been, say, in a store or a place where we might find a mannequin? Have you ever said "excuse me" to a mannequin? Have you ever perceived a mannequin as a living person, even if it was just for a split-second? How are two situations like this possible? What might this tell us about our human experience? What must be happening for that experience to occur? What might we learn about experience that will help us, at the very least, to minimize the difficulties that we face as sentient beings?

A look at these experiences may function as a heuristic opening a door to the realization that it is in and through our own experience that other living beings become what and who they are and bear the meanings they appear to embody. In a very immediate sense, sentience may be granted to a mannequin. It does happen that we may perceive an insentient mannequin as a sentient being, a person. Or we may perceive a painting as being haunted when its eyes appear to follow us as we move through a room.

The sentience-granting function of our own pure form of subjectivity, i.e., the manner in which we feel alive as the I-am sense, is immediately attributed as the sentient other or, as Edmund Husserl has said, "constitutes" the other, by our own sense of self-existence at that very moment. All others, in this sense, live through us. We are truly the "lights unto the world(s)." This process lives in each and every conscious moment of our existence. In one critical but obscured and forgotten sense, there is the experiential possibility of seeing that the sentient other--and this includes more than I will state here--is, in a very real sense, an embodiment of your own pure form of self or radical subjectivity.  


What the others are or become is granted or imputed by our own repertoire of beliefs and concepts that have been historically given by the past (incarnate) acts of others and our own contributions. This repertoire or storehouse of knowledge results from the prior incarnate acts--including experiences which are also acts in their own way--of sentient beings. This past lives within us and functions to constitute our present experience in our intention-filled acts toward an anticipated future. All acts are incarnate and remain with us in fractal-like sediment of a living past. In this sense, the past may be said to live in each act seeking fulfillment as intentional acts. This is what is called by Buddhists and Yogis karma. The past is alive constituting the present toward an anticipated future. These intentional acts not only constitute present circumstances but the living others in our experience. Who people or other sentient beings become (their what) is the doing of living past acts (karma) as incarnated in each and every circumstance we face.

At this point, it almost goes without saying that the circumstances we face result from past acts. We face these circumstances intentionally. Not as free agents willing what is but as embodiments of past acts that aim toward.  Our desires, i.e., intentionality, will organize the circumstances based on what either fulfills or thwarts the intentions. The future is an intended future that lives now as experience moves as time. Time, in this sense of the term, is synonymous with the ephemeral movement of experience structured by past actions of body, speech, and mind. Each moment is organized by the past toward an intended future and as an evanescent appearance and disappearance of phenomena--including the composition and dissolution of self-senses. These self-senses also incarnate ephemeral time ever appearing/disappearing. Selves are movements in dynamic meaningful circumstances organized within the appearing and disappearing intentional movements of experience or living. As the Buddha suggested, we may note five continually aggregating meaningful movements of perceptions, feelings, consciousnesses, intentions, and objectivities--intentionally structured ephemeral aggregations of experienced elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space, rise and fall as meaningful and intentional experience. As time, as experience, this happens too fast for the conceptualization process to account for. It attempts in vain to picture or freeze into ideas or concepts that either take stock of ephemeral experience in their fabrication or unintentionally overlook the manner in which experience occurs, based on axiomatic historically driven presuppositions that give rise to deleterious outcomes, i.e., suffering. One of the major axioms in place is the notion that we are a self within a material universe that exists independently of its constituting and dynamic elements. We ignore karma at our peril, as should be evident by now.

A careful look at the conceptualization process itself reveals it to be one ephemeral element of the movement of experience as time. Concepts rise and fall in relation to circumstances and their ephemerality and their historical constitution are overlooked in favor of attending to them as referential. What they say about becomes more important than what they mean and are. The danger of the about is not seen as they perform well for the notions of self and world that they seem to refer to as a result of mistaken usages of their heredity.

Of course and as always this examination will remain incomplete for readers to make of it what they may. History, intentions (intentionality), prior acts will not only weigh in

This is an unedited version.         

  

Choice, Free Will, and Karma: Experience Shows the Way

Let me begin by making three assertions and one prescription.

1.) There is no free will.

2.) The self is ephemeral and does not choose, i.e., choice does not happen in experience. If choice is perceived, then you are not observing experience you are simply inclined to mistake a false narrative as a true one.

3.) The self is an ephemeral manifestation that makes its appearance via a narrative, whether one is aware of its occurrence or not. What defines the self in this sense of the word is purely narrative in nature.

4.) Do not rely on anything that moves. 

The Meaning of Living (or, as they say "life")

The point of it all is it all. The point of life is living. The movement of experience good, bad, or indifferent is the point of it all. And, here is the kicker. The experience is not ours. We, as the self, normal everyday experience, mystical, inter-dimensional, sacred, profane, happy, or sad is what life, as it is lived, is all about. The experience is not ours. That is the point. We do not live. We are merely instruments for that which does. I use the word that loosely. This is not metaphysics or ontology. This is not a statement of conceptual fact. This is what we live every day. No self-continuity is obvious to us in actual, full-blown living. No matter the quality of it, the living is taking place and we are merely a phenomenal component of the movement. Experience is selfing through it all. Selfing is what experience does. The reality of life is experience itself. That's it. The meaning of life is experience itself. That's it. The point of it all is living. Living as experience is all there is. Here is the proof, and watch it happen, after reading this, we will make something of it whether we want to or not. Just watch. We can't stop it. We don't have a choice. We have to act. We must do. It is the first real commandment. Thou shalt act!


The good try to change things for the good. The bad try to change things for the good, for themselves.

--Yogi Ananda Viraj 

On the Nature of Mind

Often, I do not say nor write things that I expect people to figure out nor come to a conclusion with regard to their veracity. What I write, more often than say these days, is what I would like my readers to experience directly and see the truth of. Now, what do I mean by truth? Well, I would like the reader to actually observe what the writings point to because in so executing the same or similar exercises in the type of observation I propose here, one may come to realize the manner in which our common human experience works to generate unnecessary difficulties and open a door to the much-vaunted peace that many have already realized in their navigation of human life on the sea of vast and sentient emptiness. This emptiness is actually brimming with a past that is vectorial in nature, i.e., it is headed somewhere and some time--always in an evanescent present. This present is one that is arising as much as it is dissolving, beginning as much as it is ending, emerging from as it is headed toward, coming as it is going.

With the above in mind, let's look at our use of the word mind in this context, meaningful experience as mind and mind as meaningful experience. Let's take a close inspection of thought as thinking. Mind is always minding. There is no mind; there is minding, in the specific sense that we here and now are conducting this exercise. Through it, we intend to cultivate an attitude of simplicity in watching. At the end of honest observing, i.e., one that is not meant to harvest any theory or general conclusion about anything but to simply observe and by this observation alone free us--in a manner of speaking--from a set of narratives regarding mind that will allow us to simply watch. I know, why should we do that?

Because in doing this, in simply watching, we find release from sticky narratives that cause trouble, which are trouble itself. In seeing narratives for what they are, just narratives, there is release from their gripping effect. So, for the moment, at the very least, while performing this exercise, even if you have to play along, just watch the rising and falling of thinking or feelings or even both.

Mind is desire. 

Unedited and incomplete but still worth your attention if you are the observing type or just plain dissatisfied with life itself. This exercise has another dimension that will be added when I can find the time and situation that elicits it from my life and yours.  

Aphorisms* or now "observations" on Free Will, Ongoing...

*I believe we have moved on from the aphorism stage of this blog posting on free will. Why not call it observations regarding free will or its absence. After all, it is based on observation of our experience and that will remain the source of our language regarding free will narratives. Far too many of us are used by misguided narratives, or to be more precise misguided intentional narratives, regarding decisions and the narratives pertaining to this linguistic nightmare.

I'm sure you have heard the phrase "sentient beings" before, as in "We humans are 'sentient beings.'" Well, forget that. Let's say, arguing against the notion of free will, that there is sentience but let the "being" part drop. So, there is the incarnation of history or karma and sentience. Lose the "being" part--unless you mean be-ing.

*******

7/10/2019--Did you ever notice the fact that when our so-called thoughts are actually occurring or being lived, they are not thoughts? How did thoughts become thoughts? In thinking or, as we wish to say here, in living, there are no thoughts. "Then what is there," you may ask, you tell me. The intention or content being intended in our so-called thought is what is alive. Thoughts are non-existent then. No one is thinking them either, are they? Yet, we have the distinct impression and, most importantly, feeling* that we are thinking them--but in retrospect only. In the movement or living of intentions, we are what is in the thought and who we are is the self that abides as a dynamic person or self or being or whatever one's theoretical language deals in its abstraction-intentions that are, by the way, also lived in.

*This deserves a comment all its own. It's way too important for a mere inclusion.


Those of us who have tried, mostly in vain I might add, to lessen the number of thoughts (felt-narratives) that contain unpleasant and even evil feelings, found that methods or mind-training has failed them. Why is that? Well, to begin with, those difficult thoughts are not yours. Go from that working hypothesis and you may stumble upon some very interesting conclusions. Give it a whirl and test this out for yourself. One is left with the distinct impression, assuming you have exhausted all the possibilities of thinking otherwise, that you have been unsuccessful. That's when a change may occur. Don't believe me, see for yourself. Those of us who are not plagued by unpleasant, shall we say, thoughts consider yourself lucky and forget you read this post--which you may find to be impossible. 

"He deserves the death penalty," you have heard this before haven't you? Was this decided upon by his or her own free will? Was there some deliberation about responsibility or some such nonsense prior to this thought or statement arising? This statement is, most often pure reactivity. What do you think? Did something just "come to mind"? It's always that thoughts just come to mind.



All of a sudden, "I feel like having a piece of chocolate." Again, that pesky free will. 

Here is an example of free will with respect to getting a glass of water: "I'm thirsty; I'm getting a glass of water." The incarnate, i.e., felt narrative is the will. Looking for something outside, alongside, behind, or in front of the feeling-narrative will prove to be futile upon close observation. See for yourself.

Ever watch your hands perform? This kind of watching may take place in, for example, doing dishes or tying shoelaces. We may be carrying the assumption "I am doing the dishes," or "I am tying my shoelaces." However, if we are watching the movement of our hands, very carefully--without suspicions or expectation--you may observe the action is performed without you. Don't believe it? Watch and see. Now, this observation may be made with respect to all acts, even including speaking and thinking. After all, do we ever know what thought will occur next, honestly? Honestly here translates as clear-minded observation alone.    

A Post by Philosopher Evan Thompson, please take a look

Aim: Building a bridge between mind science and Husserl’s genetic/generative phenomenology of intersubjectivity Two central ideas: (i) Self and other. - ppt download: Subchapters: A) Intentionality and Open Intersubjectivity (pp ) B) The Phenomenological Concept of Empathy (pp ) C) Affective and Sensorimotor Coupling (pp ) D) Imaginary Transposition (pp ) E) Mutual Self and Other Understanding (pp ) F) Moral Perception (p. 401f.) G) Enculturation (pp )

Ongoing Experiment (with recurring editing): A New Cosmology Inquiry (or something like inquiry)

This experiment-exercise (EE) may bring on some rather strange and unexpected consequences. It may render your life, as you now conceive of it, to be done. It is entirely possible, if the EE takes root, there will come a transition to a cosmological event that puts an end to seeing meaning as meaning of. All will become clear. However, I invite you to look at this flim and enjoy its meaning(s) as a precursor of sorts, albeit a most enjoyable one, that may serve as an introduction to the need for communication and hence the movement of life itself. The short film is entitled Bahkyt  

https://vimeo.com/howelove/318





The most accurate description of this set of posts--within the overarching theme of the One--is best thought of, initially, as a thought-experiment. As elaborations accrue to each of the movements of thoughts spoken here (through an editing and refining process) it will become evident that this post takes on a more radical appearance and, hopefully, disappearance. This will be made clear if time allows us its hoped for dispensation. Let us pray. 

The following, despite appearances, is intended for use in treating disease. As such, it may be considered medicinal in intent. The disease this medicine has been fabricated to treat is the disease of misplaced ontological loyalties and the substitution of ontology for phenomenology* in the study of Eastern meditation practices and expected outcomes.

If you are following along with me, then you too may take off in any direction you wish while attempting to remain loyal to the stated situation that there is only One. (We shall capitalize the "O" whenever we are discussing this One.)

Despite its immediate logical shortcomings, which are readily apparent, continue on your own to play along thinking "I am that One and only" and imagine what that would be like. 

Our inquiry begins with a question. What if there was only one? Our first impulse would be to ask, "One what?" Well, that question cannot be legitimately asked because there is nothing else but One and to ask "One what?" would imply that there exists a knower and a known. To ask the question is overstepping the limits of our knowledge at this point in time because there is only One. (Part of our exercise, if you are in the game, is making an effort to stay with this apparently impossible rule that we always remember that there is only One. I know, I know, but hang in there, please.) Now, imagine we, each one of us, is this One. Put yourself in its place and imagine, if you will, what it would be like. You would be all, only, and One without a second. But how would you know this? How would such knowledge be possible in this our story or experiment? So, what would be the necessary conditions for such knowing?

First, it requires that we somehow split ourselves in two. So, let us imagine that our division into two would not be an ontological division, or a division of our selves, whatever that would mean, into two--one the knower and one the known. (Akin to Aristotle's Unmoved Mover.) We do not yet know what is but we are irresistibly drawn to consider what is so we know, forgetting the limitations placed upon us in this experiment. Some of our immediately arisen questions and judgments about this exercise must be put aside for now until we get it, the point of the exercise.  

Now, let us say that the One that I am is recognized as such by thought. Thought, therefore, provides a second which only reflects that One itself, for there is nothing else. (At this point, we begin to sound a lot like Descartes 2nd Meditation, but wait.) In our experiment, this One is each One of us, unknown by any others because there is only Me as the One. So, there is an incestuous relationship between Me and the thought that pretends and is pretentious enough to believe it is knowing itself. Let's say the conceptual or fabricated me is the second me the thought of me. So, there is still only Me, One without a second, with the realization that I am also this second me when I pretend that I am knowing me. Me is merely a reflection of Me as the One. For now, let's let this experiment sink in. Meditate on it. Use it as an exercise in imagination. Allow it to take on the ontological sense of really being that One. Find its limitations and contradictions but continue to pretend for the sake of fulfilling the requirements of the exercise. You are playing along, as they say.

(𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘯. 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳.)

                                       II.

So far we have what you may regard as a rather crude entry into an experiment that has yet to demonstrate, on an experiential level of both understanding and feeling that we are the One, the only existent. The One becomes aware of this because it has the capacity to know with its thought, something this One has always had the capacity to do but starts to do because we are only now engaging this One in our experiment. I know the going is rough but hang in there. Hopefully, the experiment will demonstrate--on more than one level--its raison d'être as we proceed and we take some time to consider, toss around in thought, and see what appears in both feelings and thoughts. 

Please recall that each of us is this One, the topic under observation. The One has come to know that it is (assume we/it knows what exists means) and now we must simply accept that we are the One and only. Think and feel this narrative. It should sound something like, "I am the only One, there is no one, no thing other than me." 

All of the above, in all senses of the term has occurred in and as time. Time is the movement of the One's experience which so far has been only that "I am," and that "I am the only One." Or, we might opt for "I am the One and only, One without a second." How do we know we are one without a second? Well, again breaking rules of logic for the sake of this experiment, I know this because there is not yet any conception of near or far in which something might exist; nor is there any other thought but that "I am" or "I am the One and only"--or something to that effect. Just imagine what that would be like. 

Now, if you have played along, here is a next step. "I am One alone, without a second, and there is no one else but me." Feel this; allow this to sink in. Do you feel the horror? What is? Is there anything at all like me? Is this it? Just me? All alone? Only me? 

Did you feel it? I did mention horror, did I not? If you are willing to indulge the idea of one alone without a second, you may feel horror if you have a past, present, and future in the mix. Imagine being all alone, deeply imagine it. If you can feel horror or fright or something beyond loneliness, you are doing this correctly--or at least doing it along the appropriate lines of this exercise. We may even feel the urge to flee from the aloneness and flee fast very fast. What is it about being alone, now? Even imagining this, if you really give this a test, the horror or some degree of it will be felt.