Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitman
Oh come on, I know you are right in most of what you say, but I enjoy it much to sometimes wrestle a bit with you :lol:
You don't know to what extent this discussion is for me just a test or exercise of dialectics with a good and illustrated argumentator like you. Something like: "let's make a chess match with Skybird now, here is a chance"
My problem is that you end up taking this too seriously and becoming caustic.
These discussions (or better: dialogues) I have head seriously at school and at the university with teachers and I enjoyed them and learned what I was supposed to learn. Those and not a subsim forum are the places to make them seriously, else you risk dedicating too much time in the wrong environment for something that, like you said, has no definitive answer and in fact has consumed much more books and resources that it was worth it, given the results.
You unmasked well the faults in my reasoning as usual, but I apologize if you took this too seriously.
As a jurist I am used to appreciate and admire the dialectics and reasoning and not just the background, so I enjoy to watch you argue. No harm done :up:
|
Well, I see, this is a finger-practice in dialectics for you then. Well, but that is not the direction I come from, Hitman. I am neither a fanatic, nor a missionary, but for me these things are a lived reality that I also have trained people in over several years, and 2-3 hundreds of them - that comes with it's own responsibility - and that i took very serious indeed. I say "trained" because somehow i must give it a name, and exporess myself in words, even if they do not show the meaning precisely. In fact it started because I was asked, and then more and more people came - while I just did what I would have done anyway when being alone. Doing dialectics to kill some time is all nice and well, but when the real important thing gets covered by it, then it does damage and distracts people who maybe "are on the search", stumble over it, mistake it for the real deal, and start heading into dead ends and wrong directions.
Let me re-tell a small but very popular Zen story. There was a fraud who had managed to trick some young monks into believeing that he was an enligthened master. He called himself the "master of silence", and his method was never to say anything and let his students answer for him, that way to display his superior knowledge about the "Zen of silence" and that words mean nothing. That way, he became fed, and was given some money, and he became comfortable, and fat, and although he knew nothing about anything, he earned respect and had a high reputation. But one day he was greeted by a foreign monk who recognised him - with all his students scattered around the market place to buy some small things, and he was all alone. And the monk said: "Oh, you are the master of silence, how lucky i am to meet you! Master, allow me to ask you this question: what is buddha-nature?" And the masterof silence did not know what to answer, and desperately started to look to both sides, and to the horizon to see if his students would come back. the monk was satisfied and said: "Ah yes. And tell me, master, what is the dharma?"
[the Buddhist teaching]. The master of silence did not know an answer to that as well, and begging heaven and hell for help he looked up to the sky and then down to the ground. And the foreign monk was satisfied and said: "And my last question: what is the sangha?"
[community of buddhist followers]. There the master of silence closed his eyes, raised his hands, defeated, and hoped the situation to go over quickly
.
Now the monk thanked him for his time, and left. In his home monastery, he told his fellow monks that he had met the famous Zen master of silence, and told them what he experienced: "First I asked him, what the nature of Buddha is. he looked to the east and then to the West and to all horizon, to show that buddha is all around, but cannot be found in just one location. I then asked him, what the dharma is, and he looked first up to the heaven and then down to the earth to show that the truth of the teaching is one whole that cannot be devided and does not differ between the high and the low. And finally i aksed what the sangha is, and he just closed his eyes and raised his hands, to show that the community of buddha'S followers give trustworthy shelter and harbour no matter where you are, and that it blesses your ways and actions, and that you can trust in buddha's blessing blindly, no matter where you are, and no matter who you are, for buddha does not see any difference between rich and poor, young and old."
Now- that is dialectics - and the damage it can do. Hope this helps to understand my Why and How.
