(excerpts from nothingness and emptiness by s.w.l)
the lotus,
in its
e c s t a s y ,
stands out,
lies within,
dominates the
quietlyabsorbsallareamindsinitspresence.
it is the swamp creature thus spellbound, thus captivated, a mind like the imprudent moth entranced by the barely flickering candle, incautious, unmindful of condition or current thinking or consequence, that, in our present formulation, we shall call, at the risk of possible sounding and then possibly, in the next moment, silencing, awkwardly, "c o n s c i o u s n e s s " (vijnana), p e r c h a n c e i
s t o b e u p b t i m e s , u
n l i k e t h
a t o t h e r a n o n y m o u s " e n t i t y "
co n s c i o u s
n e s s,
t h e n , i n t h i s s ense, is, not by contingent befallment, but trivially, by an obscure definition recently unearthed around giza, for the time being at least, still fast asleep on the far shore of the ganges/saturn/dark matter interface. (strange to confer such intimate/delicate/crumbling degrees upon animals, minerals, ethers, etc. ) ( the sense that the stakes were never p ar t i cularly h igh b
u tw h o's really measuring that kind of thing anyways?) (the sense which leads to i m p r e s s i o n s m i sta ke n or o t h e r w i s e
i n s o f a
r a s a f i g
u r a l s
a l i e n c e s t i l l d
o m i n a t e s t h e a n o n y m o u s f i e
l d o f c
o n s c i o u s n e s
s, s u p p r e s
s a w a r e
n e s
s o f s e m
i m a r
g i n
a l p r e s
ence , to the extent that
e v e n p o o r awareness is diminished, attenuated; and to that extent, also, the so-called mind drifts
among evanescent dream shadows,
haunted by shades of presence that whisper from the dark only to vanish. under wittgenstein's pen: "our life is akin to a dream of a waterfall. but in our clearer hours we wake up just enough to realize and perhaps even embrace this..."
...or, in fichte's arresting delineation: "there is nowhere a n
y t h i
n g l a s
t i n g , n
e i t h e r o u t s
i d e m e , n o
r w i t h
i n m
e, b u t o n l y i n c e s s a
n t c h a n g
e. I n o w h e r e k n o w o f
a n y b e i n g , n o t my o w n ,
n o t t h e m e r e s t c l u e. m a y b e
t h e r e i
s n o s u
c h t
h i n
g a s
b e i n g p e r s e ; I m y s e l f
k n o w n
o t h i n
g a n d i n p l a i n f
a c t a m n o t
h i n g t
o b o o t . t h e r e
a r e o n l y i m a g e s : t h e y a r e t h e o n l y t h i n g w h
i c h e x i s t s , a n d t h e y k n o w o f t
h e m s e l v e s o n l y i n t h e m a
n n e r o f i m a g e s . . . .
. . . . I m y s e
l f a m o n l y
o n e o f t
h e s e s i m p l e i m a g e s ;
i n d e e d , I a m n o t
e v e n t h i
s, b u t o n l y a c o n f u s e d
i m a g e o f i m a g e s. . ."
" . . . b a t a i l l e s
p e a k s o
f ' t h e d i s g u i s e d
s u f f e r
i n g w h
i c h t h e a s t o n i s h m e n t
a t n o t b e i n g a n y t h i n g , a t e v e n
h a v i n g c o n c i se l im i ts, g i ve s u s. . .'
(1 9 8 8 , x x x i i ). o c e a n i c a s s i milation, pantheistic self - identification , is not an
adequate response to suffering, but
merely the engorgement, the
obscenedistension,oftheself.andsolongasatmanremainsonthescene,inourconceptualimaginationoradultupgradeoffairytale,theleast trace of private individuality, its identification with brahman is not spared this opprobrium. theinnersecurityandilluminationwhichcansetaside our incessant and ever-more-subtle attempts to seize upon our actions in the moment of _______, to grasp them "red-handed," in husserl's (1982) increasingly bizarre and foundation-less idiom, in order to provide- for ourselves- a cognitive foundation
s. t hemin do ftheh uma ncan n o
t,i nsp it eofi t'smo s theroi cand s t r e n u o u s efforts, simply
l u t i o n , t
h e " e m p t y i n g , " o f i
d e n t i t y i n t
o d i f f e r
e n c e i s
t h u s c o n c o m i t a n t w i t h
t h e a n n u l m e n t of n a m a - r u p a , t
h e c o
n s t e l l a t i o n o f s k a n d
h a s w h i c h w o u l d
o t h e r w i s e n o u r i s h o u r v a r i o u s
m o d e s a n d m o o d s of d e s i r e .
. . . . . "
