The Purpose of Philosophy

[Walker]

An essential skill that can be taught to a child …

I think that learning to still the mind is the most fundamental skill that can be taught.
A still mind existentially reveals the arbitrary nature of thoughts.

Then, the proper content for contemplation can be introduced by the trusted teacher, after this skill is learned.

Clear, intellectual contemplation effortlessly follows from a still mind.

This conceptually orders the existential experience of still mind into a functioning (moving) understanding of the cave shadows.

Kids bounce around but a competent teacher can teach a kid still mind, and inspire to practice it, which doesn’t take much with a kid. If the child trusts you, simply explain how B of life follows A of essential skill, and the child will faithfully practice without question, the same as they do with sports or music.

Once the arbitrary nature of thoughts is revealed, all assumptions are suspect, and that begins to reveal the nature of things.

Questions?

[Nick_A]

An essential skill that can be taught to a child …

I think that learning to still the mind is the most fundamental skill that can be taught.
A still mind existentially reveals the arbitrary nature of thoughts.

Then, the proper content for contemplation can be introduced by the trusted teacher, after this skill is learned.

Clear, intellectual contemplation effortlessly follows from a still mind.

This conceptually orders the existential experience of still mind into a functioning (moving) understanding of the cave shadows.

Kids bounce around but a competent teacher can teach a kid still mind, and inspire to practice it, which doesn’t take much with a kid. If the child trusts you, simply explain how B of life follows A of essential skill, and the child will faithfully practice without question, the same as they do with sports or music.

Once the arbitrary nature of thoughts is revealed, all assumptions are suspect, and that begins to reveal the nature of things.

Questions?

I agree that the mind needs to be still in order to become capable of conscious attention. But at the same time what you are describing is precisely what produces a cult following as well as enslavement to the Great Beast. Do you admit the problem?

"If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows." ― Plato, Phaedrus

I am referring to allowing young minds through becoming capable of divided attention to open to contemplation rather than filling them with indoctrination

[Walker]

Respectfully, I don't think you understand what I wrote, Nick.

Cults and enslavement don’t follow clear, intellectual contemplation.

Cults and enslavement are a part of indoctrination.
They feed it, and are fed by it.

Clear, intellectual contemplation is not part of indoctrination.

It is as I wrote.

[Nick_A]

Respectfully, I don't think you understand what I wrote, Nick.

Cults and enslavement don’t follow clear, intellectual contemplation.

Cults and enslavement are a part of indoctrination.
They feed it, and are fed by it.

Clear, intellectual contemplation is not part of indoctrination.

It is as I wrote.

Maybe I misunderstood. You wrote:

Clear, intellectual contemplation effortlessly follows from a still mind.

This conceptually orders the existential experience of still mind into a functioning (moving) understanding of the cave shadows.

But who doesn't interpret? Impartiality quickly degenerates into partiality and the still mind becomes a mind of denial. Intellectual contemplation often becomes justification of denial so as not to disturb the still mind. I agree that a person capable of emotional detachment becomes capable of intellectual contemplation. However, one doesn't automatically lead into the other because we lack the capacity for conscious attention which opens us to include contemplation not restricted to duality.

[Walker]

No, it's not that.
You're doing a lot of either/or based on something else.

For example, just pause and consider.
Clinging is attachment, not detachment.
Detachment does not cause the clinging you describe.

Contemplation has various meanings.
What is contemplation not restricted to duality?

[Nick_A]

No, it's not that.
You're doing a lot of either/or based on something else.

For example, just pause and consider.
Clinging is attachment, not detachment.
Detachment does not cause the clinging you describe.

Contemplation has various meanings.
What is contemplation not restricted to duality?

I wrote: " I agree that a person capable of emotional detachment becomes capable of intellectual contemplation." I don't see how you interpreted it into attachment.

Meditation stills the mind but once a person stops meditating they revert to the same habits. Conscious attention sees the world as it is rather than imagining it. That is why the practice of conscious attention benefits the young in ways impossible for habitual reactive attention. As they grow conscious attention can become divided. The lower parts see the world and attention directed at the above invites us to experience objective values. A person than experiences the contradiction because of the habitual attached reactions of our lower nature being opposed to what opening to our higher nature reveals. Teaching here is not indoctrination but allowing a student to begin to remember what has been forgotten as far as values. A real teacher enables the student to not only learn something new but allows them to remember what has been forgotten.

Philosophical contemplation as an expression of the love of wisdom seeks to reconcile the opposition of our two natures. In Christianity it is the Holy Spirit which allows for the experience of conscious reconciliation from a human rather than the duality of the cave perspective.

[Walker]

“Intellectual contemplation often becomes justification of denial so as not to disturb the still mind.”

The desire to preserve still mind by not disturbing, which cannot occur during still mind for desire is a thought, indicates an attachment to the concept of still mind.

The desire to preserve a state of consciousness is a thought.

Moving mind is thought.
Still mind is no thought.

What you are referring to is an attachment to subjective feel-good thoughts that may, or may not, accompany the physical relaxation that follows still mind.

*

I think the consciousness attention you are referencing is mindfulness.

Mindfulness is essential for enlightenment.
No mindfulness, no enlightenment.

Still mind is essential to subsequently steady the moving mind for the unwavering attention of mindfulness, which becomes second nature like driving a car.

[Nick_A]

Walker

Relaxation is a necessary beginning for a seeker of truth. Expressing acquired habits including tension, repetitive thoughts and emotions just makes living as a conscious human being impossible. We remain programmed creatures of reaction.

We agree as to the value of the still mind but what do you accept as the value of thought in relation to the still mind?

“We know by means of our intelligence that what the intelligence does not comprehend is more real than what it does comprehend.” Simone Weil

."Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is given to very few minds to notice that things and beings exist. Since my childhood I have not wanted anything else but to receive the complete revelation of this before dying." ~Simone Weil

The still mind by itself won’t lead to this revelation. It is content with a dog's life. It must also include a quality of thought capable of surpassing the attraction to imagination serving our need for meaning.

The desire to preserve a state of consciousness is a thought.

You’ve lost me here. A dog can have a desire for food. Must it include a thought? Why isn’t it the same for a human being?

What is wrong with valuing conscious attention over mechanical reaction? It includes thought but what is wrong with that?

Mindfulness is a beginning. Jesus said we need new eyes to see and ears to hear. But once we realize we lack conscious attention necessary to experience the external world with new eyes and ears, what do we do with them once we witness our dual nature and our hypocrisy? Do we just turn off and call it enlightenment?

[Nick_A]

Mindfulness and conscious attention are similar ideas. I prefer conscious attention since it includes the eventual ability for divided attention which not only allows us to experience the duality of the external world with vivid detachment but also enables a connection with the above essential to appreciate the depth and meaning of objective values.

Mindfulness is concerned with the lower parts of our collective being. It is an essential beginning. The practice makes a harmonious connection between mind, body, and spirit possible. It sounds easy but it isn’t. To make matters worse, most reject it as foolish.

I’d like to post this excerpt from Jacob Needleman’s book: “Time and Soul” as food for thought. If he is right, human being is diminishing. This is not an easy idea to grasp. But for all those with a sincere interest in the purpose of philosophy including the reality of human being, it is worth contemplating

http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=1090

It concludes with:

The real power of faculty of attention, unknown to modern science, is one of the indispensable and most central measures of humanness -- of the being of a man or a woman -- and has been so understood, in many forms and symbols, at the heart of all the great spiritual teachings of the world.

The effects of advancing technology, for all the material promise they offer the world (along with the dangers, of course) is but the most recent wave in a civilization that, without recognizing what it was doing, has placed the satisfaction of desire above the cultivation of being. The deep meaning of many rules of conduct and moral principles of the past -- so many of which have been abandoned without our understanding their real roots in human nature -- involved the cultivation and development of the uniquely human power of attention, its action in the body, heart and mind of man. To be present, truly present, is to have conscious attention. This capacity is the key to what it means to be human.

It is not, therefore, the rapidity of change as such that is the source of our problem of time. It is the metaphysical fact that the being of man is diminishing. In the world as in oneself, time is vanishing because we have lost the practice of consciously inhabiting our life, the practice of conscious attention to ourselves as we go about our lives.

This seems to relate to:

Matthew 16: 26

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

[Walker]

Walker

Relaxation is a necessary beginning for a seeker of truth. Expressing acquired habits including tension, repetitive thoughts and emotions just makes living as a conscious human being impossible. We remain programmed creatures of reaction.

We agree as to the value of the still mind but what do you accept as the value of thought in relation to the still mind?

The value of thought in relation to still mind:
- Contemplative thought orders the world.
- An ordered world invites grace, but does not guarantee grace.
- The appearance of grace interrupts the continuity of awareness.
- An interruption in the continuity of awareness stills the mind, if only for an instant.
- (Continuity of awareness can be understood in terms of unbroken driving attention.)
- When people say their heart stopped from surprise, what they really mean is, their thoughts stopped.

“We know by means of our intelligence that what the intelligence does not comprehend is more real than what it does comprehend.” Simone Weil

."Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is given to very few minds to notice that things and beings exist. Since my childhood I have not wanted anything else but to receive the complete revelation of this before dying." ~Simone Weil

The still mind by itself won’t lead to this revelation. It is content with a dog's life. It must also include a quality of thought capable of surpassing the attraction to imagination serving our need for meaning.

- The still mind prepares and steadies attention for the unwavering thought required for intellectual contemplation.
- Still mind is not the thinking mind, so it does not provide thought, although it can be a subject of thought.

"The desire to preserve a state of consciousness is a thought."
You’ve lost me here. A dog can have a desire for food. Must it include a thought? Why isn’t it the same for a human being?
- You’re lost because you need to backtrack and place that sentence in context in order to understand it, and the context was in response to something else that you wrote that had nothing to do with dogs, as I recall without checking. However, if you want to research the distinction between need and desire I can refer you to some modern Buddhist interpretations that explain, but it's no huge relevance to this context.

What is wrong with valuing conscious attention over mechanical reaction? It includes thought but what is wrong with that?
- Mindfulness is conscious attention to whatever is happening, which includes everything you are capable of perceiving. This includes thoughts. This here inquiry into wrongness is based on non-existent boundaries.

Mindfulness is a beginning. Jesus said we need new eyes to see and ears to hear. But once we realize we lack conscious attention necessary to experience the external world with new eyes and ears, what do we do with them once we witness our dual nature and our hypocrisy? Do we just turn off and call it enlightenment?

These last are excellent questions.

- You observe whatever is happening with equanimity, including your self-assessments.
- You turn on for intellectual contemplation, not off.
- One is not prevented from experiencing the world with new eyes and ears by a lack of doing.
- Grace provides the new eyes and ears.
- Grace can be invited with order, but Grace can’t be controlled and may not accept the invitation, may not even need an invitation.

[Walker]

The deep meaning of many rules of conduct and moral principles of the past -- so many of which have been abandoned without our understanding their real roots in human nature -- involved the cultivation and development of the uniquely human power of attention, its action in the body, heart and mind of man. To be present, truly present, is to have conscious attention. This capacity is the key to what it means to be human.

"Abandoning principles without understanding their roots," brings to mind:

“Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.”

[Nick_A]

Walker, I agree with you completely as to the importance of grace to harmonize mind, body, and spirit. I also believe it is essential for for the soul to change its attention from the shadows on the wall to the direction of the light entering Plato’s cave. So I can understand you better, what do you believe is the source of grace?

As far as thought is concerned I agree that there are degrees of quality. Do you believe that thought is essential to open to the contradictions that invite the experience of intuition? Does grace help us to discover intuitive truths as described by Einstein?

1930
"Many people think that the progress of the human race is based on experiences of an empirical, critical nature, but I say that true knowledge is to be had only through a philosophy of deduction. For it is intuition that improves the world, not just following the trodden path of thought. Intuition makes us look at unrelated facts and then think about them until they can all be brought under one law. To look for related facts means holding onto what one has instead of searching for new facts. Intuition is the father of new knowledge, while empiricism is nothing but an accumulation of old knowledge. Intuition, not intellect, is the ‘open sesame’ of yourself." -- Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 16.), conversation March 4, 1930

[Walker]

Walker, I agree with you completely as to the importance of grace to harmonize mind, body, and spirit. I also believe it is essential for for the soul to change its attention from the shadows on the wall to the direction of the light entering Plato’s cave. So I can understand you better, what do you believe is the source of grace?

Of course, when saying what something is, you cannot use the word, is.

Why? Because I say so. If you do, you break my rule, which was established for the next question.

Since you agree with what I have written, perhaps excluding this, what do you think Grace is?

[Nick_A]

Walker, I agree with you completely as to the importance of grace to harmonize mind, body, and spirit. I also believe it is essential for for the soul to change its attention from the shadows on the wall to the direction of the light entering Plato’s cave. So I can understand you better, what do you believe is the source of grace?

Of course, when saying what something is, you cannot use the word, is.

Why? Because I say so. If you do, you break my rule, which was established for the next question.

Since you agree with what I have written, perhaps excluding this, what do you think Grace is?

I believe grace is the light of the Good. Genesis 1:

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

You will appreciate this:

If you would look at a flower, any thought about that flower prevents you from looking at it. The words the rose, the violet, it is this flower, that flower, it is that species keep you from observing. To look there must be no interference of the word, which is the objectifying of thought. There must be freedom from the word, and to look there must be silence; otherwise you can’t look. If you look at your wife or husband, all the memories that you have had, either of pleasure or pain, interfere with looking. It is only when you look without the image that there is a relationship. Your verbal image and the verbal image of the other have no relationship at all. They are nonexistent.”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti. From SILENCE:

Can silence ever be a part of philosophy or is it restricted to religion?

[Greta]

Silence should ideally be part of everything just as all music has rests.

Science, philosophy, religion - any attempt at close observation and attention requires some mental silence. You leave it to the senses for a while, which is enjoyable.

During silence is when flow states and inspirations appear which are then later analysed by some so as to communicate to others what they learned. Others, however, see their mental world as more of a private matter and thus don't much attempt to articulate their insights during flow states.