The Philosopher's Tao

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Nikolai
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The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Nikolai »

Hi guys,

I’ve started this thread as both an explanation and discussion on how the intellect can be used on the spiritual path. For the 15 years of my adult life philosophical thought, alongside meditation, has been my main practice and I now feel that I’m in a position to share what I have learned.

It took years for me to realise that my love of the philosophers and my near constant asking of the question ‘why?’ was at heart a religious yearning for truth; Christianity is the main religious narrative in the west and tends to prioritise love, devotion and the emotional life as being the authentic traits of spirituality. It was only when I started to read the Indian and Chinese philosophers that I realized that philosophical questioning can and does lead to spiritual realization (and that many of the lesser Christian theologians had discovered this).

Perhaps I should make this a bit clearer. Although, properly understood, the spiritual life is not different to the earthly life, it does help to imagine that the two constitute different phases in a person’s life. Spiritual growth is therefore the move from an earthly existence to a spiritual existence. We can understand this as either a moving towards heaven, or we can understand this as a moving away from earth and this distinction helps to make sense of the various religious practices. To move towards heaven, or the spiritual life, we must first believe it to exist, and then secondarily set about confirming our belief. Methods used to confirm might be prayer, meditation, devotion to a deity or guru, ritual, church attendance, physical exercises and many others. These are all extremely important methods, and everyone must eventually seek recourse to methods of this nature if they are to discover spiritual truth.

But all the ritual and ceremony in the world will achieve nothing unless we are able to understand how to move away from our illusory and unsatisfactory earthly existence. We must learn to doubt the reality of all our earthly beliefs in order to become open to spiritual beliefs, and the cultivation of doubt is probably the best definition of philosophy I know. Philosophy teaches us how to challenge and thus move away from all the illusions and the superstitions that keep us bound down to earth.

I am not trying to present philosophy as some kind of ‘true way’. People vary widely in temperament and the vast majority will have neither taste nor inclination for intellectual activity. But philosophy is suitable for more people than we realise, and gets overlooked due to the widespread belief that intellectual activity is somehow inimical to the religious life, which should be a matter for the heart.

Any person who is both philosophically and spiritually minded soon learns a rather depressing truth. Wisdom, when it comes, does not come in the form of ‘correct answers’. The philosopher is never in a position where he can provide correct infallible solutions in the manner of say, the arithmetician. Truth is instead a matter of realizing that the question, in the first place, was asked in error. We solve nothing at the level of the questioning, but we are at least at the advantage of no longer fretting over illusory anxieties. The philosopher learns that all of human suffering is due to anxiety over nothing. We are like children terrified of monsters that do not exist.

Truth, then, does not exist in the form of facts and errors…but perhaps our first illustration might give some indication as to how this might happen.

The Coffee Mug

Imagine there are two men sat opposite to each other at a table, and between them is a coffee cup. As you approach you realise they are arguing. One is politely and firmly insisting that coffee cup is for right-handed people like him. The other man is respectively disagreeing; he insists that the cup is for left-handers, and to illustrate his point concretely his is now lifting the cup with his left-hand, and now attempting the same thing with his right-hand. The difficulty he encounters is the most practical and sensible evidence he can muster to support his left handed position.

In this simple example we can discern all the principles of earthly ignorance, as well as all the principles of spiritual wisdom. I’ll list these in turn.

1) The nature of the word

An ignorant person, that is, a person who is low in spiritual wisdom is unable to separate reality from their conceptions of reality. ‘Right-handed mug’ is a concept and they believe that this concept is intrinsic to the object. They do not understand that the arising of the concept ‘right-handed’ is dependent on their perception of it. The mug is right-handed, and this is an objective fact independent of them. To say that the right handed mug is also left-handed is as impossible to the ignorant person as saying that a cat is also an airplane propeller.

No-one believes in the truth more than the ignorant person.

The wise person, on the other hand, is able to see that the mug can be both left-handed and right-handed and is therefore intrinsically neither. They are strangely agnostic on the truth of the matter. And yet this person is still able to use the concepts right and left intelligently and appropriately. Were a blind man to ask which had to use to lift the cup he would answer with reference to one concept, and one concept only.

2) The role of truth in the emotions

The argument at the table is getting more and more heated. Anger is what happens when a person’s understanding of the truth is threatened. To have a truth is to have a passion for it. Both men have their truth and must protect it, both for their sake…and for the benefit of their misguided opponent.

The wise person, on the other hand, could not side with one of the men even if he tried. Once he has seen into the truth of the concepts right and left handed he will never be able to go back to be like the men. He now walks the earth immune to a certain type of ignorance and a certain type of anger. He is therefore a less angry person. As he grows a wisdom he will come to realise that all human anger and strife is rooted somewhere in a false one-sided appraisal of reality identical to that made by both of the men sat at the table. Spiritual peace is the product of wisdom. If the wise person is to feel anything towards the two men it will be compassion for their unfortunate situation.

3) To see truth is transcendence of earth

The ignorant man at the table is chained to his situation in time and space. He knows only what he sees before him. The right-handedness of the mug is as clear as day to him, and he lifts it with his right hand to prove it. He lacks an important intellectual skill, which is also a special spiritual gift. He is unable to float from his chair and seat himself where his neighbour sits, and see his neighbour’s reality through his mind’s eye. He is unable to see that his right is another man’s left.


So we can see already some very important principles. First, that a concept of reality is not the same as reality. Second, that this insight affords us emotional tranquility and third, that the gaining of this insight spiritualises our consciousness and makes us less earth bound than we had been.

It is certainly true that the above example is a form of ignorance that would exist only in children, but in principle it is identical to all human illusion. Spiritual wisdom, and the transcendence that comes from that is something that all people have achieved to a greater lesser extent. This is why much talk of earth and heaven, ego and higher self, as being distinct phases are unhelpful. But all people have their limits as to how much transcendence we have achieved. At some level, and on some questions we are still just dumb men arguing over coffee cups.

We are all deeply chained to our earthly existence because of our attachment to a whole range of intellectual delusions. We believe that some things are good rather than bad, we believe that we are free to choose some things and not others, we believe that some things are true and others false, we believe that some things have happened in the past and that others are yet to happen in the future, we believe that some things are here and others elsewhere…

But most of all we believe that we exist and we do not see that we also do not exist. And it is this one that is the biggie. We do not see that declaring our individual existence is as foolish as declaring that a coffee cup is for right-handers and not for left handers. Understand the truth about existence and you have understood the highest truth that the mind is capable of.

I plan to discuss some of these big questions and hopefully help, if not to show the truth, but to show that what we once thought is not the truth. I guess I’ll start with some of the the easy stuff, but if you guys have anything that you want to talk about we can do that too. There is no right and wrong order.

Philosophy clears the mind, first by occupying it. After the effort, a flash of insight leaves you in a state of mind that is cleaner and fresher, less bogged down. Once you have seen the truth on any given issue you are able to march on unhindered. The true philosopher’s mind is left remarkably vacant – they are no longer able to ruminate over things that less philosophical people love to mull over. This is a kind of paradox: but the true philosopher is no absent-minded professor. The true philosopher has left thought behind. But their path continues beyond thought - this is the true meaning of meditation. Unless you understand that something so rich and sublime as the meditative life lies at the end of philosophy you are going to feel alarmed at losing all your once cherished beliefs – perhaps you’ll worry about what shall be left. But by the same token this awareness will help those who worry that all this intellectual activity takes them further away from their formal meditation.

If you can be honest and say that despite all your sitting, all you Qi Gong you still hold a lot of intellectual beliefs then it might be that a bit of good old philosophizing might be just the thing.

I look forward to hearing from you guys
jackles
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by jackles »

yeah what your saying here is that some folks cant realise thems selves in any way other than event terms.
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HexHammer
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by HexHammer »

My good Nikolai, nothing of what you say is coherent, and makes absolute no logical sense. Your anologies are piss poor and explains excatly nothing. The left hand mug has no real solid point, other than proving that you can't make a logical point.

It's too long and too talkative.

It's nothing but jumping to noexistant conclusions and believeing in castles in the skies.
Blaggard
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Blaggard »

Hex hammer once again steps in to explain why someone is a moron, without actually taking the time to explain it. You're becoming predictable in your trolling Hex.
It's nothing but jumping to noexistant conclusions and believeing in castles in the skies.
That's what your mum said, that's you that is. :roll:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nCKYEM8qRc

"You see Thora hird"

"You are her"

"No I am not how can you say that"

"you are though that's your girlfriend"

"Well that's just not true!"

"That's what your mum said."

"you are though you love her."

And so on.
Last edited by Blaggard on Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nikolai
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Nikolai »

Yes, unless we pick up on specific points discussion is impossible.
Blaggard
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Blaggard »

Nikolai wrote:Yes, unless we pick up on specific points discussion is impossible.
Sadly Nikolai Hexhammer never picks up on anything specific just flames people who dare to say anything at all. You'll get used to it, and if not my I advise the friend or foe/ignore list in you User CP. :)
Last edited by Blaggard on Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nikolai
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Nikolai »

Probably lacks the confidence to engage I guess
Blaggard
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Blaggard »

Nikolai wrote:Probably lacks the confidence to engage I guess
By the way watch the clip: click on the blue text, you'll get what I mean. And if you don't that's your mum that is.

It's not a hesitancy to engage it's just childish flaming ad nauseum. Hexhammer claims he is retired and well into his latter years, God help him if it is true. :P
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HexHammer
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by HexHammer »

Nikolai wrote:Yes, unless we pick up on specific points discussion is impossible.
I made a very speficic point about the "left hand jug".

How is that unspecific?
jackles
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by jackles »

hex is one of dem folks.

who cant see anthing except event.
his own event.ha
Felasco
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Felasco »

Ok, here's a specific point to engage.
Nikolai wrote:The philosopher learns that all of human suffering is due to anxiety over nothing. We are like children terrified of monsters that do not exist.
The big enchilada anxiety is of course fear of death. It may be that the melodrama of our routine day to day anxieties serves mostly as a smokescreen to protect us from this much larger anxiety lying in wait like a wolf for us at a deeper level of our minds.

Wisdom may be an unnatural and rather dangerous business. It is after primarily fear of death and pain that keeps the creatures of this earth striving to live. Well, except for the plants, they just are. Perhaps they are the wisest creatures of all?

What if we were to truly see that we need not fear death? It seems we might experience a profound peace. On the other hand, we just might kill ourselves the next time life gets inconvenient.

If taken too seriously, the process of philosophy assumes that we are in a position to figure life out, to analyze and manage it. That's a dubious assumption at best. Philosophy just for the fun of it is less susceptible to fantasy.

Perhaps the wise man does not bother to philosophize at all, because he is too busy watching a rain drop dangle precariously on the edge of a tree branch, a far more interesting and meaningful affair?
jackles
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by jackles »

the attachment to the event.fears the passing of eventness.
Nikolai
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Nikolai »

Felasco
If taken too seriously, the process of philosophy assumes that we are in a position to figure life out, to analyze and manage it. That's a dubious assumption at best.
I agree with this position. Philosophy assumes the individual subject in time and space exploring an external world and death is the inevitable corollary of this world view. Freedom from anxiety comes when we have learnt not to philosophise.

But philosophy can take us to the brink. It can teach us to be sceptical about the time and space worldview. Once we have the ability to doubt it we have hugely disarmed it. This is the reason that the ancient greeks held philosophy to lead to the state of ataraxia - peace and blessedness. Philosophy has always had this soteriological potential, like the religions. While we in the west have lost this vision, in the east philosophy always has and still does recognise the possibility for salvation from human anxiety.

This is why in the OP I made the distinction from arguments that lead us to doubt the 'earth' and those that lead us to know 'heaven'. The latter are actually not arguments that can be talked about but rather ways of being. Once we have graduated from philosophy it is our basic attitude to reality that constitutes further progress, not intellectual argument.
Perhaps the wise man does not bother to philosophize at all, because he is too busy watching a rain drop dangle precariously on the edge of a tree branch,
Yes, absolutely. The wisest have always moved beyond mere philosophy, although it has likely played a part in their life.
Felasco
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Felasco »

We can do a bunch of fancy abstract philosophical thinking and come up with some highly speculative theories which no one will ever be able to prove, debate them for years, write books about them and so on, and then....

Exchange philosophy for the glory of the here and now.

Or...

We could just get on to the here and now now, and skip that first part. :-)

You want to reach the mountain top.

To get to the top, stop climbing.
Nikolai
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Re: The Philosopher's Tao

Post by Nikolai »

All true, but easier said than done!
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