Wow, illustrations. Can you guess what they denote? Oh, all right, I'll tell you. They are representations of the reality of the continuum. I don't expect that that will actually clarify things, but all will be made clear.
As impressed as I have been with the continuum, I'd always been nagged by a simple question. How come I'd never seen it anywhere else? It's so simple and so elegant that there's no way known I'm the only person to have thought of it. (Perhaps it does exist elsewhere. Feel free to fill me in if you've seen it.) But I suspect it doesn't exist and the reason is simple. The continuum is flawed and must be rejected.
But before the big picture, let's attack the small stuff. There were certain technical problems that came clear to me as I wrote the anti-buddha piece below. The continuum is obviously asymmetrical. The two ends are not alike. The selflessness end is straightforward. Achievement of selflessness and arrival at Buddha-dom is a full-stop. There is nothing beyond oneness with the universe. I may change my mind on this matter later, but for now, it's what I think. Let's wait until I'm Buddha, ha ha.
The selfishness/antibuddha end of the continuum is fundamentally different. For starters, it has no full-stop. Any ultimate act of evil you can think of, I could top it. And sure, you could then top me. When Michael Palin in Life Of Brian said that crucifixion was very terrible, Eric Idle replied that it wasn't as nasty as something he just thought of. Exactly. There is no end to the variety of selfish behaviour and there is no end to the magnitude of it. Anti-buddha is an abjectly imprecise term.
Do the pictures make more sense now? The selfless end of the continuum now comprises a single centre. The selfish ends are beyond counting. This depiction illustrates the singularity of selflessness and the multiplicity of that which is not selfless. As I rolled this image around in my head it became clear to me why no one has bothered with a continuum that gives equal time to selfishness. Selfishness (which is to say sin) is without end. To dwell on it is to never find selflessness.
Monks in zen monasteries are given a series of koans, or riddles. Invariably the first of these is 'mu' or nothingness. I met a fellow who had spent three years contemplating just this first one. I look forward to doing the same thing. And in contemplating nothingness it really doesn't do to give proportional time to everything-elseness. And that's what the selfishness end of the continuum is - an outsize distraction. Here's a thought - If you're trying to figure out where you're going what's the point of thinking about all the places you don't want to be?
So. The continuum is too complicated. One end of it is unnecessary. All that's required is the pursuit of selflessness. Dwelling on selfishness is worthless. Ha ha ha ha, the obvious question now is - whither this blog?
17 comments:
I know! I know! Pick me!
A plasma cutter breakthrough.
Tony
cripez i hate time lag....
can't wait ta read :)
Great post, lets just see what your buddie O has to say about this one.
However as you always blitz him I guess I'll just have to drop by the other Bible thumper CM's blog to read that which he has said in response to your charming wit.
You really leave his posts up if for no other reason than to show others just what a Buffoon he really is.
Hee Hee,
Such enthusiasm. Is this a hint? That I should write less more often? How cruel you all are.
And otherwise silverfish, I can see your point. Let's view it as me encouraging the onion to move out of home and go and get his own blog.
i had to think on this for a while....
"So. The continuum is too complicated. One end of it is unnecessary."
complication aside...
w/o it there could be no exercise of free will.
nobody, the continuum is not flawed. It may appear that way to us. We, being flawed ourselves would naturally have a skewed view of such a concept.
Also I wonder at your logic when you tell us of this continuum implying ‘forever’ yet you have a full stop inserted somewhere along this journey?
Is the full stop Buddha, God, or what we are to become; similar to a stain on the footpath of life? Or even a blemish in the face of reality?
Your implication in selfishness is to go on forever (preferable?) however and I'm sure AppleOnion will agree with me here as we are being implicitly subjective, in reality God/Buddha/Kahuna wants you and me for a rainbow.
So while you graphic is very clever and awe inspiring as a tool in our understanding of your continuum, we need more colour.
Tony
thanks for this great question . . .
"If you're trying to figure out where you're going what's the point of thinking about all the places you don't want to be?"
ellis t
PS, it says up at the top, "Everything here is an expression of this continuum." So if it's not actually a continuum, then everything here is an expression of . . . [ W h a t ? ]
(maybe that's whither the blog, and maybe it's there already, radiating like the pictures?)
altho you aussie boys are straight, far away, and perhaps married, i think you are all three utterly adorable, and i mean specifically nobody, ben, and tony.
and though no one asked i would vote for easing off somewhat on that ranting bulb-vegetable
Terrific stuff, thanks to all.
Hello kikz. The continuum is not wrong. There is nothing to say it can't still be used. There is always free choice and nothing here impinges on it. One may always choose selflessness. Or not, ha ha.
To make things clear, every line in those illustrations is the continuum. The continuum exists in myriad uncountable variations. One end of it is always the same. The other end, selfishness, heads in every direction, at every speed, to every distance. It is infinite and cannot be comprehended.
A thought strikes me! The selfish 'end', in its infinite nature, equals the impossible riddle (that I frequently bang on about). Can you dig it? It is the puzzle that cannot be unraveled. It's a thing so infinitely complicated that the only sensible choice is to turn one's back on it, to zone it out, to focus on the useful end of the continuum, on selflessness.
Which was the point of this piece. Forget the million trails of sin leading away from the point. They are distractions. The bit that counts is the point, the singularity, selflessness.
Further thoughts occur - detailing sins, as in the ten commandments, is a waste of time. The 'sins' and their variations cannot be inventoried. There's too many of them. One cannot proscribe against the infinite. Seven sins, ten sins, a thousand sins - the list will always fail. Subsequently, urging people not to do things is a recipe for failure. It invites loophole seeking. This is the beauty of impossible riddles and why villains embrace them.
There's a lot to be said for summing up the infinite variety of sins with a single thought. Me, I call it 'selfishness'. Every variety of wickedness has self-serving as it's basis. No one ever sinned selflessly. And if they did, it's not a sin. Honestly!
Anyway... if proscriptions against sin are bound to fail, why spend any time dwelling on the concept? Bugger proscriptions. Why not say, 'This is the kind of person I wish to be'. We devote ourselves to climbing rather than not falling.
Otherwise Tony, selflessness (as I see it natch) is a full stop like heaven is a full stop. No Christian would presume to travel beyond heaven. So it is for me and Buddha. And I'm sorry if I've failed mate. I will freely admit I have no idea what I'm doing. I just make it up as I go along. Really I'm just thinking out loud. One day it might lead somewhere. But it hasn't so far, ha ha. Well not beyond Queensland, anyway.
Hello Ellis, did I answer your question already? As for the onion, there I was googling myself (as you do) and found yet another site where he has three pages of all his stuff. It's like this weird marble hall full of statues of himself in various poses as the great orator, the great thinker etc, but there's no one in there. It's just him. Very odd. I suspect that if he went and did one of those silent ten day retreats he'd go down in a tearful babbling heap.
Otherwise, at this point in time I think I shall make it my policy to ignore him. But I will not provide him with a forum here. I spent time in a Buddhist temple. And I had problems with certain things there. This says more about me than it does about the temple. They were not bad people there. The temple merely was what it was. The problem was me. So I thanked them for their hospitality and removed myself. I was not more important than the sangha, if you can dig it. Apollonian views himself as more important than the sangha. But he's wrong. And I shall not assist him in remaining that way.
mym my, i just visited curt's site... it is much less restrained in expressing its xtian love...than over at les' place.
les must be job... if it were my blog... i'd blitz it too. just rabid, sputtering, incoherent hate.
More colour, more clarity. Thanks.
I see 'sin' more than selfishness; it's anything that's not good for 'me'. Like sticking a fork in my forehead for instance. Sounds fun; not good for 'me'.
Again, a big subject.
Tony
Sure but how would you know if you're done or not? And Tony, no offense, but if you're up for 'fun' don't call me, ha ha. You're on your own with the fork thing mate.
When I was young and sorting my friends from the chaff I had a friend like appleonion.
He could postulate on anything and did; waxing fine. The trouble was he would wax on topics so remote no one but a Tibetan monk may have had an inkling. None of us had the faintest idea what he was on about most times, nor cared. We all felt he went there for safe keeping as he rarely got an argument; we’d just nod, mmm. Very elitist, superior in all ways (pretence), kept uni full time ‘till he was nearly 40; ancient history or something of the sort (history of belly button fluff as good as). Finally got a job with the govt. rubberstamping at VA. Teats on a bull. Mind you I don’t remember him being a tick like the big a.
Tony
Really? I have him pegged entirely differently. I figure he's either a kid or very immature. But really I don't expend too much energy thinking about him. He is being particularly obnoxious over at Les' lately I notice.
"And I shall not assist him . . ."
No argument there.
ellis t
The Apopplexian's alright. His only crime is that of serving his cereal to the masses with rocks and salt as opposed to milk and honey.
He also needs to know that you must never kill a Jew. The Jew lusts for others attempts to murder him. In the Jew's story of Cain and Abel we find that Jews, the modern day descents of Cain, know that they have "G_d's" licence to extend vengence seven times over against their attackers.
It is difficult to believe that the Nationalist Socialist Germans of the 30s and 40s would have knowingly murdered Jews systematically, especially considering their knowledge of Jewish mythology and their lust for vengeance on those who refuse to play the role of "Goyim" as assigned in the Kosher psychotic Scribblings. The probablity is that the holocaust is a hoax as no knowledgable "Anti-Semite" or Amelek as opposed to gullible Goyim ever advocates the killing of Jews. Even in the face of the most egregious Jewish Goading of the heretic. The bullying and predatorial Jew wants us to have a go so that his murder of the other can be manufactured in his moralistic hubris machine to masquerade as a righteous event.
The Jews must live and be permitted to speak freely, as should we all. See who calls for "Hate" laws first ! It won't be those who selflessly and fearlessly speak what they honestly believe to be true.
All Goyim need be educated at primary school level regards the role assigned to them in the Jewish scriptures. That role is of course suboordinate in all ways to the magnificent Jews. The Jewish religion is after all inclusive of non-Jews and indulges itself unceasingly in the comparative analysis of a Chosen race and every one else.
Yup,
As an anti-racist and someone who pursues one-with-the_universe I am diametrically opposed to racists and those of an us-and-them mindset. This means Jews sure, but it also means Apollonian. If Apollonian is against us-and-them racists he's nuts to believe that espousing us-and-them racism is the answer. Honestly.
As I've said before, and as you say here, if Apollonian didn't exist the us-and-them crowd would invent him anyway. He wants to have a loooong hard think about himself and what he wants to achieve and what he's actually achieving. And if he could become less impressed with himself along the way, I'm sure we'd all congratulate him.
Oh! New flick at the cinema. "Makurokurosuke dete oite!" Ha ha ha, all will be explained.
Apologies to those who pop in to the cinema daily and have done so for weeks now. If it's any consolation I do feel guilty. This last thing took me ages to finalise. Some things fly off my fingers and some things are bloody stubborn and take forever. As ever, worthy flicks are harder to write about than crap ones. Coming up is a destruction effort so it won't be long.
Yoroshiku.
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