I like the word “contemplative science” because both parts convey several important aspects. Contemplative covers various modes of thinking and introspection, e.g. meditation and critical thinking. Science would allow to abandon certain things, if there are enough reasons to do so. It could prevent the project from becoming wishy-washy as so many others did.

Thanks for those responses. I think i’m going to have to re-read them several times

Even though we have moved on to a new post, I wanted to say that we are giving more thought to your ideas about what a gathering might look like. Others, too, your many thoughtful suggestions, comments, ideas, and questions about practice/praxis are stimulating further work on our part. For one thing, we want to collect and organize the material, and put it in an easily accessible, searchable format. In other words, your participation is producing material for furthering the work. Thanks.

We can, of course, continue our discussion on this post . . .

Your friend says: “If it ‘works’ for you, then why stop?” And you have nothing more to say.

For me, that’s exactly where the real conversation begins. You friend has asked a great question, but he has done so in the form of a rhetorically hidden determination. Rather than my saying too much about it now, why don’t you continue your dialog with him or him by exploring, for instance:

What constitutes “works”? Who decides? Where does our conclusion or speculation about what “works” involves put us in relation to x-buddhism? What if it displaces x-buddhist “good wisdom”? What is the “it” that “works,” anyway? Can that “it” be unplugged from the x-buddhist system of postulation? If so, what conclusions follow? What, finally, happens, to that conclusion disguised as a question: the why stop? Stop what–spinning around on the x-buddhist decision, or stop the de-decisioned non-practice?

And so on. I think dialog is most fruitful when it is driven by questions. Thanks for you participation here.

The point of deconstruction is to demonstrate the contingent, socially constructed nature of what we ordinarily take to be metaphysically guaranteed. Being contingent and socially constructed doesn’t make something any less powerful–try not paying your taxes, and the “deconstructing” the tax code!

My response to your friend would be that we want to get beyond pragmatism, and not just say it “works for you.” instead, we want to question whether the kind of “you” it works to produce is the best kind we can come up with. If selling crack in the high school parking lot provides you a comfortable living, it isn’t enough to say it “works for me.”

Yes, Nembutsu is LOADED in more ways than one, so destruction might be in order.

Glenn says, ‘so much x-buddhist material becomes superfluous that there is no turning back’. I’m seeing that this is true. however, isn’t everything superfluous to some extent? I know that’s a general statement, but I was trying to explain non-buddhism to friend and this fairly intelligent person didn’t understand one bit. His response was, ‘well, everything can be de-constructed, etc. There’s still some good wisdom in buddhism. If it ‘works’ for you, then why stop?” I really had nothing more to say. It’s like two different languages and definitely unrecognizable to x-buddhism.

I think that Tomek is suggesting that decisions to preserve x-buddhist supports might belie the continued force of dharmic decision.

Glenn (# 101), this is exactly what I have been trying to suggest.

By the way, interesting is the argument made today by Matthias, namely when he said “that the nature of our subconscious cognitive mechanisms aren’t intentional.” I guess it’s tempting to apply this argument in the case of hope that lies at the bottom of the dharmic desire to escape. If hope is a common element of folk psychology involved in the intentional stance, then it is no-brainer why “non-buddhistic” neuroscience might be greeted with aversion when it threads its way through the cracks made in the x-buddhistic vallation by the destructive forces of your heuristics. In this case it’s not just the abstract horizon of the hopeless solar catastrophe that looms at the distance before the x-Buddhist being perplexed by aporetic dissonance, its the immediate foreboding that s/he might already be the living creature that is simply a kind of dead creature, and a very rare kind.

Let’s do that. I’ll send you a mail about it tomorrow.

Glenn (#100),

I was a bit sloppy with my language there. I don’t really think there is something like “only-meditation” and a atomistic self. Of course even a only-meditation group contains and transports a ideology. Still, in some sense, I think a meditation-group would be more “open” than a buddhist-meditation-group. But I’ll talk to Matthias about that and then see again.

I was asking about the organisation of the material partially out of my interest for technology. Most concepts on the web are either based on communication or on gathering information. This is not the first project that suffers from that separation.

Finally, Sorry if this again is one of my totally-offtopic-posts. What I read here often inspires me to think about things and the results are not always related to SNB.

I meant to include this statement in my #96.

Very practical question here…can one chant nembutsu and be ‘disinterested’ and make the praxis ‘unrecognizable’ to x-buddhism. This may not be far enough, but chanting as a praxis, concentration exercise rather than from ‘ultimate trust’ or ‘to be born in the pureland’.

Tomek, of course, is asking some very hard questions (#56, for starters) about the degree and extent of the heuristic’s function. A continuum seems to be emerging. It runs from gradualist to radicalist, or maybe from preservationist to destructivist. I am at the radical extreme. That is a statement about practical discovery, not about reasoned decision. What I mean is that when I engage the non-buddhist heuristic, I find that so much x-buddhist material becomes superfluous that there is no turning back. If I discover that chanting coca-cola while staring at the wall or into space or toward a stone or a picture of a mountain is “effective,” then why preserve “nembutsu”? Maybe there are quite good reasons for one’s doing so. You could conclude that the mythological elements are in fact part of what makes it “effective.” This business of efficacy is, of course, woven into the very fiber of the postulates supporting chanting. So, part of “deflating” and then, as you are doing, “re-commissioning” that postulate involves awareness of the force of “nembutsu’s” claims over the mere (via cancellation of warrant) chanting. I think that Tomek is suggesting that decisions to preserve x-buddhist supports might belie the continued force of dharmic decision. But maybe things like stilling the vibrato and cancelling the warrant can be a matter of gradualism, I don’t. Becoming an exile is scary. Living with the solar catastrophe as your line of horizon is, I suppose, not for everyone. I don’t know. I prefer questions over answers. This is all one big experiment. So, please continue, and keep us informed.

1. I am curious about why you think your group may not need a dialog component, and that perhaps just sitting is enough. Things seem to be breaking down along a certain line on this blog. The division has to do with the explanatory power of two models of human being: the atmanistic/atomistic self model, and the social-symbolic para-self model. Following x-buddhist discourse here in the West, I see a reflexive adherence to the former model. Taking a meditation-only approach would seem to settle for that view. Incorporating dialogue would seem to attempt to affect the social-symbolic formations that give rise to your participants’ ideologies. Personally, I am still curious about the sitting-dialog-ideology-action nexus. Whatever you decide to do with your group, just be aware of the fact that specific values and presuppositions are operating therein. What do you think?

2. Yes, we are going to work on this matter over the summer. We, too, want to find a way to organize the blog material so that it is more accessible. We welcome any suggestions.