In Religion and Nothingness, Nishitani Keiji quotes the poet Basho: From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree. And from the bamboo, of the bamboo. The philosopher then elaborates: Basho does not simply mean that we should “observe the pine tree carefully.” Still less does he mean for us to “study the pine tree scientifically.” He means for us to enter into the mode of being where the pine tree is the pine tree itself, and the bamboo is the bamboo itself, and from there to look at the pine tree and the bamboo. He calls on us to betake ourselves to the dimension where things become manifest in their suchness, to attune ourselves to the selfness of the pine tree and the selfness of the bamboo. The Japanese world for “learn” (narau) carries the sense of “taking after” something, of making an effort to stand essentially in the same mode of being as the thing one wishes to learn about. It is on the field of sunyata that this becomes possible.
Thank you for introducing me to *peripeteia*. I am reminded of the agreement of Heraclitus and Parmenides - two philosophers generally considered diametrically opposed to each other;
" 'Listening not to me but to the logos it is wise to agree that all is one,' Heraclitus says; and he complains that all men do not know this nor agree: 'They do not understand how in differing from itself it agrees with itself: a backward-turning stringing like that of the bow and the lyre.' " (Catherine Osborne 'Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction', OUP).
Also, from Parmenides;
"... it is easy to understand how the path that he follows turns backwards on itself (Parmenides, fr. 6). As previously mentioned, it is the awareness of humans that is divided, not the cosmos. The healing aimed at by Parmenides, and the intended effect of Heraclitus’ fragments, is to communicate an experience of unity in which it not only heals the listener of divided awareness, but initiates contact with divine reality." (Amie Murray, Aug 16, 2021, 'Reconciling Heraclitus and Parmenides': https://medium.com/@murrayamie/reconciling-heraclitus-and-parmenides-f7b1bad304d )
You have to remember that what makes Heraclitus unique is that he was a philosopher who was placed at the head of a Mystery cult, i.e., the Mystery of Ephesus, c. 500 BC. His task in this role of administering to a place where the truths of the supersensible realms could still be attained, required that he bear the "fire element" in an especially concentrated way. Thus, he is known for being stubborn and obstinate, but this is only because he was born out of due time, which means premature. Thus, his task was to carve out the rational Logos in some 100 epigrams. Without this record, how could the Logos, which is a measure of the Cosmic Word become known to the thinking world? This had to be established by the leader of a mystery cult, and this was Heraclitus; a philosopher of high repute at the midpoint of the Greek millennium. Spiritual-scientific research reveals that it was actually Cratylus who was supposed to be born to lead the Mystery of Ephesus, but his incarnation was pushed to the right, in favor of Heraclitus, and Cratylus was born later as a contemporary of Socrates, who wrote a dialogue about him.
Beautiful! Sergey Averintsev said, "Interpretation is a form of narcissism. When we interpret the other, we reduce them to our method of interpretation. Understanding is the fruit of love because love grasps without interpretation.
"To behold a person as an embodiment of her own ideal and essence is to encounter her reality, and to love her"
This is great. How often are many people falling in love with the 'idea' of someone rather than the 'reality' of that which they are? That 'idea' is of the beholder, but perhaps not the same 'ideal' of the beholden. If that makes sense.
yes, "the idea of something" can be used in two, somewhat equivocal senses, as indicated in the essay. on one hand, it can refer to our personal, abstracted concepts of it. that's a sense in which "the idea of something" could be counterposed against "the reality of it." but that's not the only way the term can be used. it can also be used to refer to the essence, or ideal of that thing—both as the means and the end of a successful perception of it—and in this sense, cannot possibly be disjunctive with the reality of it.
To truly behold someone or something requires being and becoming, which are developmental stages that commence at birth and run their course in seven-year life cycles. For example, age 42 completes the sixth developmental cycle, and ushers in the era of Spirit Beholding. We begin to see the transparency of consciousness, and acquire the faculty of "seeing through" the outer-external parameters. Piercing-the-veil is another way of expressing this. Parsifalian Thinking as the means to discern what stands behind subject-object distinctions; the coveted, Ding -an Sich, of Immanuel Kant. He claimed it couldn't be reached, which David Hume jumped all over with his logical empiricism.
Rudolf Steiner indicated as the fundamental component and substrata of his Anthroposophical Spiritual Science that Reality is the experience of Spiritual Beings Who are numbered in hierarchical order, and bearing in mind that Man is the 10th Hierarchy in this developmental parade over many long Aeons/Epochs of Duration, which eventually has become the present mechanism known as Time, which Christ brought to Earth two thousand years ago, and thus adding Himself as the Fourth Dimension to the generally recognized three spatial dimensions of a bounded world. This is how Self has arisen as an experience of Individuality. There are further stages from now, and every one of them involves Enlightenment. I love this panoply of thinkers on this thread.
In short, we all live in an era of "dead thoughts", which we think everyday while walking around with our eyes open. This causes a kind of destructive process to occur in the nervous system, and this can only be relieved by going to sleep, which enables thought to stop, and allows the astral body and ego to go into the spiritual worlds. This process becomes the regenerative action for waking up in the morning, and feeling renewed. So, time is of the essence in this kind of arrangement. Momentum is either sustained, or lost forever. Of course, there is always the possibility of the next engagement with enlightened minds. I see that here in this place. Cheers.
Not surprised you appreciate members of the Kyoto school. I strongly suspect appreciate An Inquiry into the Good by Kitaro Nishida. I highly recommend it.
His approach to the world unfolds as concentric circles:
Goethe's world conception strove for a kind of "Primal Phenomenon" in seeing/perceiving the Reality behind subject-object distinctions. Rudolf Steiner caught onto this early in his career, while reviewing Goethe's natural-scientific writings. Here is an interesting excerpt, and maybe the last place where Steiner specifically refers to Goethe's unique kind of "Etheric Thinking"
"Goethe's world conception strove in this direction. Goethe endeavored to recognize the pure phenomenon, which he called the primal phenomenon, by arranging the phenomena which work upon man in the external world, without the interference of the Luciferic thought which stems from the head of man himself; this thought was only to serve in the arranging of the phenomena. Goethe did not strive for the law of nature, but for the primal phenomenon; this is what is significant with him. If, however, we arrive at this pure phenomenon, this primal phenomenon, we have something in the outer world which makes it possible for us to sense the unfolding of our will in the perception of the outer world, and then we shall lift ourselves to something objective-subjective, as it still was contained, for instance, in the ancient Hebrew doctrine. We must learn not merely to speak of the contrast between the material and the spiritual, but we must recognize the interplay of the material and the spiritual in a unity precisely in sense perception. If we no longer look at nature merely materially and, further, if we do not “think into it” a soul element, as Gustave Theodore Fechner did, then something will arise which will signify for us what the Yahve culture signified for mankind three millennia ago. If we learn, in nature, to receive the soul element together with sense perception, then we shall have the Christ relationship to outer nature. This Christ relationship to outer nature will be something like a kind of spiritual breathing process."
Thank you for introducing me to *peripeteia*. I am reminded of the agreement of Heraclitus and Parmenides - two philosophers generally considered diametrically opposed to each other;
" 'Listening not to me but to the logos it is wise to agree that all is one,' Heraclitus says; and he complains that all men do not know this nor agree: 'They do not understand how in differing from itself it agrees with itself: a backward-turning stringing like that of the bow and the lyre.' " (Catherine Osborne 'Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction', OUP).
Also, from Parmenides;
"... it is easy to understand how the path that he follows turns backwards on itself (Parmenides, fr. 6). As previously mentioned, it is the awareness of humans that is divided, not the cosmos. The healing aimed at by Parmenides, and the intended effect of Heraclitus’ fragments, is to communicate an experience of unity in which it not only heals the listener of divided awareness, but initiates contact with divine reality." (Amie Murray, Aug 16, 2021, 'Reconciling Heraclitus and Parmenides': https://medium.com/@murrayamie/reconciling-heraclitus-and-parmenides-f7b1bad304d )
You have to remember that what makes Heraclitus unique is that he was a philosopher who was placed at the head of a Mystery cult, i.e., the Mystery of Ephesus, c. 500 BC. His task in this role of administering to a place where the truths of the supersensible realms could still be attained, required that he bear the "fire element" in an especially concentrated way. Thus, he is known for being stubborn and obstinate, but this is only because he was born out of due time, which means premature. Thus, his task was to carve out the rational Logos in some 100 epigrams. Without this record, how could the Logos, which is a measure of the Cosmic Word become known to the thinking world? This had to be established by the leader of a mystery cult, and this was Heraclitus; a philosopher of high repute at the midpoint of the Greek millennium. Spiritual-scientific research reveals that it was actually Cratylus who was supposed to be born to lead the Mystery of Ephesus, but his incarnation was pushed to the right, in favor of Heraclitus, and Cratylus was born later as a contemporary of Socrates, who wrote a dialogue about him.
Beautiful! Sergey Averintsev said, "Interpretation is a form of narcissism. When we interpret the other, we reduce them to our method of interpretation. Understanding is the fruit of love because love grasps without interpretation.
"To behold a person as an embodiment of her own ideal and essence is to encounter her reality, and to love her"
This is great. How often are many people falling in love with the 'idea' of someone rather than the 'reality' of that which they are? That 'idea' is of the beholder, but perhaps not the same 'ideal' of the beholden. If that makes sense.
yes, "the idea of something" can be used in two, somewhat equivocal senses, as indicated in the essay. on one hand, it can refer to our personal, abstracted concepts of it. that's a sense in which "the idea of something" could be counterposed against "the reality of it." but that's not the only way the term can be used. it can also be used to refer to the essence, or ideal of that thing—both as the means and the end of a successful perception of it—and in this sense, cannot possibly be disjunctive with the reality of it.
To truly behold someone or something requires being and becoming, which are developmental stages that commence at birth and run their course in seven-year life cycles. For example, age 42 completes the sixth developmental cycle, and ushers in the era of Spirit Beholding. We begin to see the transparency of consciousness, and acquire the faculty of "seeing through" the outer-external parameters. Piercing-the-veil is another way of expressing this. Parsifalian Thinking as the means to discern what stands behind subject-object distinctions; the coveted, Ding -an Sich, of Immanuel Kant. He claimed it couldn't be reached, which David Hume jumped all over with his logical empiricism.
Rudolf Steiner indicated as the fundamental component and substrata of his Anthroposophical Spiritual Science that Reality is the experience of Spiritual Beings Who are numbered in hierarchical order, and bearing in mind that Man is the 10th Hierarchy in this developmental parade over many long Aeons/Epochs of Duration, which eventually has become the present mechanism known as Time, which Christ brought to Earth two thousand years ago, and thus adding Himself as the Fourth Dimension to the generally recognized three spatial dimensions of a bounded world. This is how Self has arisen as an experience of Individuality. There are further stages from now, and every one of them involves Enlightenment. I love this panoply of thinkers on this thread.
In short, we all live in an era of "dead thoughts", which we think everyday while walking around with our eyes open. This causes a kind of destructive process to occur in the nervous system, and this can only be relieved by going to sleep, which enables thought to stop, and allows the astral body and ego to go into the spiritual worlds. This process becomes the regenerative action for waking up in the morning, and feeling renewed. So, time is of the essence in this kind of arrangement. Momentum is either sustained, or lost forever. Of course, there is always the possibility of the next engagement with enlightened minds. I see that here in this place. Cheers.
Not surprised you appreciate members of the Kyoto school. I strongly suspect appreciate An Inquiry into the Good by Kitaro Nishida. I highly recommend it.
His approach to the world unfolds as concentric circles:
1. Pure Experience (prior to any sense of self),
2. Experience OF a self, and then,
3. Experience AS a self
Goethe's world conception strove for a kind of "Primal Phenomenon" in seeing/perceiving the Reality behind subject-object distinctions. Rudolf Steiner caught onto this early in his career, while reviewing Goethe's natural-scientific writings. Here is an interesting excerpt, and maybe the last place where Steiner specifically refers to Goethe's unique kind of "Etheric Thinking"
"Goethe's world conception strove in this direction. Goethe endeavored to recognize the pure phenomenon, which he called the primal phenomenon, by arranging the phenomena which work upon man in the external world, without the interference of the Luciferic thought which stems from the head of man himself; this thought was only to serve in the arranging of the phenomena. Goethe did not strive for the law of nature, but for the primal phenomenon; this is what is significant with him. If, however, we arrive at this pure phenomenon, this primal phenomenon, we have something in the outer world which makes it possible for us to sense the unfolding of our will in the perception of the outer world, and then we shall lift ourselves to something objective-subjective, as it still was contained, for instance, in the ancient Hebrew doctrine. We must learn not merely to speak of the contrast between the material and the spiritual, but we must recognize the interplay of the material and the spiritual in a unity precisely in sense perception. If we no longer look at nature merely materially and, further, if we do not “think into it” a soul element, as Gustave Theodore Fechner did, then something will arise which will signify for us what the Yahve culture signified for mankind three millennia ago. If we learn, in nature, to receive the soul element together with sense perception, then we shall have the Christ relationship to outer nature. This Christ relationship to outer nature will be something like a kind of spiritual breathing process."
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/MissMich/19191130p01.html