BigMike wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2024 9:38 am
Dear BigMike:
A bit of indulgence, as you’ll likely see. Somewhere along the line, I’ll get to gist. Bear with me. The rest of the salad over the stinky implicitness of the thread title will be sprinkles of Christmas Cheer filler of an intellectual sort, since that is our lot in this realm, mind without bodies so to speak which gives perspective to,
we are the body, but not this body exclusively.
The gist pertains to your apparent need to stimulate the Free Choicers to see beyond and discover why a particular choice is made, for anyone. Why must such a choice as is made, be made.
But, I offer you the religious perspective, because I think that is your need to understand, or at least your angle to elicit conversation. What do you need to understand, or rather, highlight? I think it’s the perspective of free will that incorporates, that encompasses and includes, this “Determinism,” that seems to be such a hot philosophical item.
If I may, I’d like to interject a bit of
Paganism into the mix, as it relates to the here and now. Early today I layered up against the cold world. Long Johns, jeans, heavy canvas shirt, insulated vest and coat that consists of a shell with a loose collar up to my nose, the shell covering a light down-coat liner that zips out, but not today. Nice leather gloves that some elf slipped into my drawer that I found for the first time. Watch cap lined with fur to keep the brain warm.
Well, I stepped out the front door and sailing down the middle of the street, in a downward trajectory, flew a redtail hawk with a full grown dead rabbit in his talons. He was followed by six big, noisy crows. He landed about thirty yards away at the side of the road. The crows surrounded him in three dimensions and filled the space with their big noise. The big hawk lasted for about twenty seconds of that, and then flew to a close-by, low branch, still up for the fight, but the heckling magpies must have insulted his dignity because he took off to a higher perch after that. He couldn’t eat in peace. If he had a bigger brain he could have consoled himself with the concept that the suffering of hunger builds character, but then he would have been too heavy to fly, as he obviously was with that rabbit. His ambition was bigger than his wings but in the cold world a hawk must take what he can get.
Anyway, I wondered at the sign for awhile as I walked due east. The life and death event correlated with memories recent and distant as a metaphor, as does everything rather dramatic, and even the not so dramatic, but near the end of the walk it occurred to me to clear things up for you, from a religious perspective.
Now, I haven’t read the whole thread, but I read a few of your thoughtful postings, and a few of the elegant responses. I figure I know what certain folks mean by determinism, and free will. So, maybe my thoughts have been covered already in the many postings I didn’t read, but here’s how I figure it.
Should you feel the need to be a befuddled, or one inspired to critique, keep in mind I am most open to your perspective rationally presented rather than hearing the limitations of any particular FSK’s interpretation of what I offer whether it be sincere or rote, that may not stir any need to continue. I think the best method for understanding is to understand first how something can be true and if that can’t be resolved, then dig deeper into one’s own lack.
You are absolutely correct that what we do is inevitable. I have expressed this myself, many times. I have also considered this notion of free will. Free will, and religion, are inextricably linked, and here is the reasoning that explains this link.
A person does what they must do, always. The doing is the revelation of what had to be done, and while at first glance this reasoning may appear circular, it is not.
I’ll throw out a lose term here, and that’s
expansion of consciousness. This term is best explained as
perspective, as the long-absent Harbal once noted. When perspective expands without effort to incorporate a vast swath of humanity, and also oneself at the same time, then we can say that consciousness is expanding. But, no need to get too involved with the cosmic chatter and the details.
What does this mean and why bring it up? Well, folks don’t realize where it is, until they get there. In other words, until they get there, in many ways people are automatons. It’s a consequence of habit, which is a consequence of earning a living and making that the point, until at a certain age many break free of expectations.
In other words, although people always do what must be done, at some point there is an awakening regarding what it is that must be done, and that changes everything. From the religious perspective, it is an awakening that can be sudden or gradual, however what really happens is that there is no,
suddenness. It’s like a balloon filling with water, or wine if you prefer. The balloon reaches just this side of its maximum stretch and then something happens. A bolt of lightening. A death. A birth. The song of a bird in some aftermath of a life experience. Or … perhaps thirty years of meditation followed by a self-discovered self-enquiry, prompted by the question, just what the hell are you up to with your life? And after that, after the many experiences and discoveries, then years of study and reflection and contemplation as the experiences continue. That too. Then the balloon bursts and the world is reassembled with a new view, and one could say the cause of this God, and it had to happen at that time and place.
In other words, religion incorporates determinism because although each of us does what must be done, what must be done changes. It evolves. What a young man sees must be done will forever be in front of him, then comes a time when what must be done is not the same when forever is behind him and the remaining years are far less.
The Big Change, BigMike, is a revelation of one’s life, from the nameless thing of a thousand names that many call God. The intellectual explanation of how this happens, or what happens, and the processes involved in how we get through the day, is the bone of contention between chosers and those without choice.
However, not to be preachy, but what intellectual Christians are incorporating with their knowledge of human nature … what is more eloquently explained with the Tibetan term …
sems nyid (pure mind, nature of mind), is explained for Christians simply in the Holy Bible, and even more simply with the genuine, self-generating experience of compassion, and the spontaneous love for everyone in our presence, without judgment, in the present time and when their presence is our thoughts when apart, which is the gist of Christianity in day-to-day life.
One can love a tiger for being a tiger but that doesn’t require stepping into its jaws. This is how Christians can love even those who try and cheat them, and this is why realizing the nature of mind (sems nyid) requires love and compassion, or else that realization will remain hidden and not even on the radar.
It’s a larger, if not cosmic perspective to observe oneself doing what must be done, when what must be done is not so pleasant, and realize that everything is a lesson. I think of this when I see the workers on their garbage pick-up route on a cold dark Christmas eve morning, riding on that steel platform next to the garbage smell, with the only pleasure being the physical exertion that ends with a hot shower, maybe a hot salts bath and some wine or beer or whiskey to be free for awhile.
A question: Are you a teacher, BigMike?
Your mission, should you need to accept it, is to take this to a higher perch into the light of the Holy Day, which does not require your personal belief but rather a broader understanding than the personal, of why it is.
