Comments on Single gesture, whole of realityTypePad2008-07-06T03:20:34ZBrian Hineshttps://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/tag:typepad.com,2003:https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2008/07/single-gesture/comments/atom.xml/Brian commented on 'Single gesture, whole of reality'tag:typepad.com,2003:6a00d83451c0aa69e200e5538cd0bc88332008-07-07T17:16:36Z2008-07-07T17:16:36ZBrianhttp://hinessight.blogs.com/Edward, per usual I enjoy your comments -- both agreeing and not agreeing with them, both understanding and not understanding...<p>Edward, per usual I enjoy your comments -- both agreeing and not agreeing with them, both understanding and not understanding them. </p>
<p>Wonderful.</p>
<p>I don't believe the Tai Chi woman was looking upon the authenticity of "gesture" to be an injunction by the cosmos. </p>
<p>It's something else. Hard to put into words. Not technique, but what makes technique or mere action into something else. </p>
<p>I agree, though, that the quest for authenticity as if it is something objectively real seems ridiculous.</p>
<p>I can't stand all those Zen stories where some poor student responds to his Zen master and gets hit over the head, or laughed at, or whatever.</p>
<p>Supposedly there's some authentic way of acting or speaking, and the poor student missed it. So he slinks out the door, meditates for another ten years, and tries again to say something spontaneously authentic.</p>
<p>To my mind, this makes Zen into another fundamentalism. Except, the dogma isn't in a book; it's in the mind of the Zen master who only accepts what matches his way of looking at the universe.</p>
<p>So I liked your "The so-called art of being alive is an aesthetic practice, not a creed or spiritual requirement from the source of all."<br />
</p>Edward commented on 'Single gesture, whole of reality'tag:typepad.com,2003:6a00d83451c0aa69e200e5538b448188332008-07-06T23:36:27Z2008-07-06T23:36:27ZEdwardMonstrum for Epimetheus To a God, what’s potential is most alive. Re-forming, re-writing scripture, the possible and the probable writhing...<p>Monstrum for Epimetheus</p>
<p><br />
To a God, what’s potential is most alive.<br />
Re-forming, re-writing scripture,<br />
the possible and the probable writhing<br />
dragon and tiger in the high temples.<br />
That valley of ten-thousand things is alive,<br />
real and so dissolute.</p>
<p>When the treeline finally collapses,<br />
and your idylls expire,<br />
the last thing out of Pandora's pithos<br />
will be the first thing entering a dead man's heart.</p>
<p>Just Hope’s gesture casts the world<br />
in flecks of vermillion on the landscape.<br />
Rodin leads out a bronze burgher’s chin<br />
and in dim and sooty lamp light <br />
we find "The Potato Eaters."</p>
<p>But you remember:<br />
Sheltered in a copse of slowing heartbeats,<br />
after the acrid escape of every ill into existence,<br />
a stunned and foolish girl leaned in to look.<br />
</p>Edward commented on 'Single gesture, whole of reality'tag:typepad.com,2003:6a00d83451c0aa69e200e553a61ae588342008-07-06T16:44:51Z2008-07-06T16:44:51ZEdwardgah, worship of the self, and all the connections to "authenticity" is delusion. Reality is not in the relative position...<p>gah, worship of the self, and all the connections to "authenticity" is delusion. Reality is not in the relative position to deserve or not deserve attention. What a superstitious bunch of claptrap. As though I am hurting the world when I am driving down the road trying to decide between vanilla or chocolate and I miss my turn. "Driving while unclear," is the ticket I receive from such karma kops.</p>
<p>I agree that one sweeps a floor in order to sweep the floor, not to be done sweeping the floor. But that is not because some fictional "spirit of the clean floor" deserves my loving attention. The so-called art of being alive is an aesthetic practice, not a creed or spiritual requirement from the source of all. We are not called to be authentic: falseness is an intellectual position opposing trueness. Is is annoying? Possibly. Cripes, move on.</p>
<p>The genius that spoke through Andy Kaufman was that fakery is also vastly entertaining. But dig it, that is because there is a uniquely abled person performing that fakery.</p>