the real

[Guest guest]

I can't tell you anything about the real,

unless I assume there is some space outside

of the real, where you could be in need of

knowing of the real.

 

And that is the dream that is attempted:

a dream where things need to be said,

something real needs to be told.

 

There is no space apart in which that dream

can be beheld.

 

So concern yourself not with words of the real.

 

For you cannot be in need of anything real,

unless you could ever be apart from the real.

 

Really.

[Guest guest]

Dear Dan,

 

I'm struggling for a wonderful magic transformation

of myself as hard as anybody, and I understand,

sort of, to a degree, that this is a ridiculous futile

thing to do.

 

But I don't view this search as a search for the

real, because ordinary reality seems perfectly

real to me. The only reason I have for suspecting

that there's something realer, is that a bunch

of dead sages tell me so.

 

So what should I make of your poem? (I think

of your posts as poems.) As usual, it's exquisitely

eloquent and witty -- and from my perspective, a

little bewildering.

 

Rob

 

 

-

<dan330033

<Realization >

Saturday, February 15, 2003 12:05 AM

Re: the real

 

 

> I can't tell you anything about the real,

> unless I assume there is some space outside

> of the real, where you could be in need of

> knowing of the real.

>

> And that is the dream that is attempted:

> a dream where things need to be said,

> something real needs to be told.

>

> There is no space apart in which that dream

> can be beheld.

>

> So concern yourself not with words of the real.

>

> For you cannot be in need of anything real,

> unless you could ever be apart from the real.

>

> Really.

>

>

> ..........INFORMATION ABOUT THIS LIST..........

>

> Email addresses:

> Post message: Realization

> Un: Realization-

> Our web address: http://www.realization.org

>

> By sending a message to this list, you are giving

> permission to have it reproduced as a letter on

> http://www.realization.org

> ................................................

>

>

[Guest guest]

Realization , " Rob Sacks " <editor@r...> wrote:

> Dear Dan,

>

> I'm struggling for a wonderful magic transformation

> of myself as hard as anybody, and I understand,

> sort of, to a degree, that this is a ridiculous futile

> thing to do.

>

> But I don't view this search as a search for the

> real, because ordinary reality seems perfectly

> real to me. The only reason I have for suspecting

> that there's something realer, is that a bunch

> of dead sages tell me so.

>

> So what should I make of your poem? (I think

> of your posts as poems.) As usual, it's exquisitely

> eloquent and witty -- and from my perspective, a

> little bewildering.

>

> Rob

 

Hi Rob --

 

Why would one try to escape from what you

call " ordinary reality that seems perfectly real

to me " to move somewhere else, somewhere more

perfect, more total?

 

Only if one believed one existed apart from,

yet somehow in, this " ordinary reality "

and had the option to move somewhere else,

experience something else for itself --

perhaps lured to that belief by dead sages --

or perhaps by the dope pusher down the street

with a bag of heroin.

 

Forget what dead sages have said, and merely

investigate the real in front of you, as

you know it.

 

Is there a space in which something could exist

apart, having its own inherent being?

 

If no such space can be found, then nothing

can be assumed to have ever had its own inherent existence

in a space apart.

 

The " ordinary reality " is not what it appeared

to be, when it was construed in relation to

a self with its own separable existence as

a perceiver of a reality in which qualities

and things had their own spaces, situations,

and thingess apart from the observer and

from each other.

 

-- Dan

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

 

Dan's puzzles about the real are logical conunundrums in which the real is

defined as what is and you can never get outside that without falling into that

vertiginous condition known as infinite regress. However if you look at reality

in a non-dual way you can ask without fear of heights or depths `how are things

in reality that they should appear to be the way that they do'? The problem

with infinite regress arises when you remain on the same level in order to grasp

something or when grasping in some manner or other is the issue that requires to

be accounted for. The classic Buddhist criticism of the Atmam stems from their

applying this principle to the notion of the witness and at the same time

retaining their idealist epistemology ie. What we are acquainted with are the

ideas in our own mind and we know the `external' world only by inference. I

have no wish to become a weapon of mass instruction so I'll leave the analysis

of the insufficiency of vijnanavada to one side. Suffice to say that the

tripartite reality of knower/knowing and the known is reduced to an impoverished

`knowing' (Vijnanavada). In that solipsistic view of the world you are always

home alone.

 

Sidebar: To be fair inferential knowledge of the external world only tends in

that direction. " As a serious conviction, on the other hand, it could be found

only in a madhouse, and as such it would need not so much a refutation as a

cure. " (Schopenhauer/The World as Will and Idea)

 

The classic Advaitic question is (a) how is there self luminous cognition and

(b) a self. We must bear in mind that they reject the position that you must

then espouse a mental subject/mental object view? This mature view appears to

be compromised by an intermediate teaching which has the uncertain footing that

leads to infinite regress. That is my reading of it e.g. " the form is perceived

and the eye is its perceiver. It (eye) is perceived and the mind is its

perceiver. The mind with its modifications is perceived and the Witness(the

Self) is verily the perceiver. But it (the Witness) is not perceived (by any

other). I. Drg-Drsya-Viveka

 

To revert again to the real it must be stressed that the real in question is the

really real i.e. Metaphysics in the non table turning sense. Those whose grasp

of everyday reality is frail should not be confirmed by a literal reading of

Sunyavada (Emptiness). In any case it claims much more that it can establish.

 

" That by which the non-existence of things is witnessed must be real. All would

be ignorant of the existence and non-existence of things if that were not the

case. Therefore yours (the Buddhist sunyavadin) is a position that cannot be

accepted. " From Upadesasahasri by Sankara

 

Best Wishes, Really, Michael.

 

Dan Wrote: concern yourself not with words of the real.

For you cannot be in need of anything real,

unless you could ever be apart from the real.

 

Rob wrote: But I don't view this search as a search for the

real, because ordinary reality seems perfectly

real to me. The only reason I have for suspecting

that there's something realer, is that a bunch

of dead sages tell me so.

[Guest guest]

Realization , " svahauk <ombhurbhuva@h...> "

<ombhurbhuva@h...> wrote:

> Hello All,

>

> Dan's puzzles about the real are logical conunundrums in which the

real is defined as what is and you can never get outside that without

falling into that vertiginous condition known as infinite regress.

However if you look at reality in a non-dual way you can ask without

fear of heights or depths `how are things in reality that they should

appear to be the way that they do'? The problem with infinite

regress arises when you remain on the same level in order to grasp

something or when grasping in some manner or other is the issue that

requires to be accounted for. The classic Buddhist criticism of the

Atmam stems from their applying this principle to the notion of the

witness and at the same time retaining their idealist epistemology

ie. What we are acquainted with are the ideas in our own mind and we

know the `external' world only by inference. I have no wish to

become a weapon of mass instruction so I'll leave the analysis of the

insufficiency of vijnanavada to one side. Suffice to say that the

tripartite reality of knower/knowing and the known is reduced to an

impoverished `knowing' (Vijnanavada). In that solipsistic view of

the world you are always home alone.

>

> Sidebar: To be fair inferential knowledge of the external world

only tends in that direction. " As a serious conviction, on the other

hand, it could be found only in a madhouse, and as such it would need

not so much a refutation as a cure. " (Schopenhauer/The World as Will

and Idea)

>

> The classic Advaitic question is (a) how is there self luminous

cognition and (b) a self. We must bear in mind that they reject the

position that you must then espouse a mental subject/mental object

view? This mature view appears to be compromised by an intermediate

teaching which has the uncertain footing that leads to infinite

regress. That is my reading of it e.g. " the form is perceived and

the eye is its perceiver. It (eye) is perceived and the mind is its

perceiver. The mind with its modifications is perceived and the

Witness(the Self) is verily the perceiver. But it (the Witness) is

not perceived (by any other). I. Drg-Drsya-Viveka

>

> To revert again to the real it must be stressed that the real in

question is the really real i.e. Metaphysics in the non table turning

sense. Those whose grasp of everyday reality is frail should not be

confirmed by a literal reading of Sunyavada (Emptiness). In any case

it claims much more that it can establish.

>

> " That by which the non-existence of things is witnessed must be

real. All would be ignorant of the existence and non-existence of

things if that were not the case. Therefore yours (the Buddhist

sunyavadin) is a position that cannot be accepted. " From

Upadesasahasri by Sankara

>

> Best Wishes, Really, Michael.

>

> Dan Wrote: concern yourself not with words of the

real.

For you cannot

be in need of anything

real,

 

unless you could ever be apart from the real.

>

> Rob wrote: But I don't view this search as a search for

the

 

real, because ordinary reality seems

perfectly

 

real to me. The only reason I have for

suspecting

that

there's something realer, is that a

bunch

of

dead sages tell me so.

[Guest guest]

Realization , " michael Reidy "

<ombhurbhuva@h...> wrote:

> Hello Dan,

> I hope I've got the gist of what you're saying. It seems to

me that

> you're moving between the metaphysical level of being/existence in

an

> absolute sense and this mundane reality. At this level we use the

word

> 'real' in many different ways - real cream, real butter, real

democracy.

> You can trace the main usages yourself. A certain criterion of

this or

> that exists and is applied. Anyway there is a sense of testing.

The use

> you offer of real has no reference to anything. It is like the

smile of

> the Chesire Cat. Similarly 'existence' is of no particular

existent but

> qua existence itself and not anything in particualar which

exists. Which

> is fine but the problem arises when you mix up existence as such

and a

> particular existent and treat them as though they were on the same

level.

> e.g. the cat is on the mat. Because some of the elements in that

sentence

> are capable of being defined by pointing should 'is' be too? Not

of course

> by pointing but in some mysterious undefined way, preverbally.

>

> I would maintain that there is a pre-reflective cogito which is

the sense

> of self-existence but as you do not believe in the self then that

preverbal

> awareness you would not I think accept. Perhaps I have

misconstrued your

> position completely,

> Best Wishes, Michael

 

Self-tendency to exist perceptually is

pre-reflective and pre-cognitive even -- it

is how sensations, reflections and cognitions eventually

can be known as such.

 

The self could be viewed as the primal locational

point of awareness that is involved in the very

first sensing of anything.

 

The only trouble is, there is no very first sensing

of anything.

 

The self, as anchoring and real as it seems, turn out

not to be anchored.

 

That means, everything that is real to the self, can't

be more real than the self to which it is real.

 

My obscure pointings are to indicate this question:

what is " prior " to the self-sense -- not prior in

terms of time, because there is no time without

self-being ...

 

There is a truth prior to self -- not a located

point of awareness, and not a reality in relation

to that self-point of established perception.

 

-- Dan

[Guest guest]

Dan wrote:

 

Self-tendency to exist perceptually is

pre-reflective and pre-cognitive even -- it

is how sensations, reflections and cognitions eventually

can be known as such.

 

The self could be viewed as the primal locational

point of awareness that is involved in the very

first sensing of anything.

 

The only trouble is, there is no very first sensing

of anything.

 

The self, as anchoring and real as it seems, turn out

not to be anchored.

 

That means, everything that is real to the self, can't

be more real than the self to which it is real.

 

My obscure pointings are to indicate this question:

what is " prior " to the self-sense -- not prior in

terms of time, because there is no time without

self-being ...

 

There is a truth prior to self -- not a located

point of awareness, and not a reality in relation

to that self-point of established perception.

 

--

 

Hello Dan,

You skip ahead of me though I try to salt your tail with pinches of

philosophy. But we are facing in the same direction. Best Wishes, Michael

[Guest guest]

> Hello Dan,

> You skip ahead of me though I try to salt your tail with

pinches of philosophy. But we are facing in the same direction.

Best Wishes, Michael

 

Hi Michael --

 

Yes, I enjoy your philophical bent.

 

Philosophy can get heavy if it is

taken as a means to an end.

 

But if it's taken as an inquiry

whose end is its own beginning,

it can't get heavy at all.

 

Peace,

Dan

[Guest guest]

D: Get real.

 

A: It can't be done.

 

N: Got it.