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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mar 17, 2015 - 03:26pm PT
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TT quoted "Hard not to "be here now" while fly-fishing. Wading in the middle of a stream while taking note of the insects hatching off the water with ears a tuned to the slurp slurp of dining fish puts me in the now moment every time.......If this is TVash's thesis then I agree.....just my two cents from yet another gross materialist.
The comparison of meditation practice to activities typically misses the point because the activities referenced are often the ones we really love to do ie paddling , fishing, running, climbing etc.. Meditation practice is more helpful when it comes to being in the moment for activities we don't like ie illness, traffic jams , being fired, basically when things don't go the way "I" wants them to go. I call it wanting a hamburger at the hot dog stand. Suffering can be defined as wanting things to be different then they are; meditation can be very helpful in recognizing that we often cause our own suffering by not recognizing that we can't get hamburgers at the hotdog stand. Meditation practice can be helpful to decrease the time it takes to see things as they are rather than how we want them.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Mar 17, 2015 - 08:35pm PT
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Meditation practice is more helpful when it comes to being in the moment for activities we don't like ie illness, traffic jams , being fired, basically when things don't go the way "I" wants them to go
This is so much more acceptable to me than the metaphysical approach. But I think the word meditation has quite a few interpretations, including the moving meditation of climbing.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 17, 2015 - 08:51pm PT
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One of my favorites among ambiguous lines:
"Take me for a hamburger."
or perhaps
"Taken for a hamburger"
And until a just-now Google search, I thought it was a short story by O. Henry.
edit:
there is also
Can you get a frankfurter in Hamburg?
Can you get a hamburger in Frankfurt?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 12:45am PT
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"The comparison of meditation practice to activities typically misses the point because the activities referenced are often the ones we really love to do ie paddling ,"
Talk to me about that after you've paddled 90 miles in the open Atlantic in seas up to 15 feet.
I'm not sure 'enjoyable' applies.
Want a vacation from your normal mental state? I'll go toe to toe with any meditationalist on that front.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mar 18, 2015 - 08:13am PT
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TV said "Want a vacation from your normal mental state? I'll go toe to toe with any meditationalist on that front. "
TV please report to WB for another spanking.
vacation from your normal state of mind. We might have to observe the mind to figure out what it's normal state is . How would one do that? What is your normal state of mind? And who is it that wants a vacation from this normal condition?
You may be correct;are most people trying to take mental vacations? Why?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:12am PT
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"Why would I drag my finger across my throat?"
Please to mail order a sense of humor.
The 'spanker' position has already been filled by an Italian. Consolation for Werner - at least she's still Axis.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:28am PT
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Lovegas: An insane person could behave in a non-dogmatic, irrational, and unpredictable manner, but I wouldn't consider that enlightenment.
Normalcy IS insanity.
To move human consciousness in what direction?
This can’t be said. What is a teacher pointing to?
The idea [Hitler could have been enlightened] is preposterous.
“Preposterous” indicates the limit of what is viewed as normal or what is possible.
Loving-kindness (maitre) is not simply what we feel for those who are close or related to us, and compassion (Bodhicitta) is not mawkish pity, emotional overwhelm, or idiot compassion. Both arise simultaneously as emptiness arises, oddly enough. All seem to be wide-open, immeasurable felt experiences—the very experience of experience itself—not concepts or objects.
The belief that Buddhas or enlightened people must be “good,” because that’s how they became Buddhas, cannot be accurate. Causality cannot be found or established—not for Buddhas, or for anything else. Holding opinions of “good,” “right,” “appropriate” IS religious—whether they concern evolution, morality, or art. There can be only one reality. What manifests must be reality. How could there be more than one? So, how can there be different views? Incommensurability (of views, of scientific disciplines, of religions) should be apparent. The mind is like a radio tuner; the band of frequencies infinite.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:37am PT
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If you want to jump on the fast track to enlightenment, put a paranoid chihuahua and an aggressive tabby kitten in the same room together.
Or maybe that's just levity.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:42am PT
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When there is no evil person to take the place of a world catalyst event a liberated soul descends and acts out the event.
Hitler comes to mind.
Then disappears when finished.
Those who only use their 5 material sense to understand what's happening remain completely bewildered.
You're stoopid science evolution progression theory and guessing is completely thrown out the door then.
Modern materialistic theory of evolution is complete lunacy except for the materially condition souls who "Think" they got figured out ......
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 09:52am PT
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I do not agree with that statement. Violence and theft are all evolved behaviors for this apex predator, and nearly all of us are capable of both given the right environment and circumstances.
The population of violent offenders is heavily represented with psychopaths and the mentally ill - that is true. But that is not the whole story.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 10:10am PT
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Tvash, although I am on the spiritualist side of the discussion, I have to say I highly enjoy your posts. You have a way with words and I want to give you props for that.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 10:13am PT
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Enlightenment cannot be attained. It can be experienced, but it isn't a trait that becomes you
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 18, 2015 - 10:17am PT
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I don't think about enlightenment much - which, I hear, is the recommended approach to experiencing it. It's like love. The more you pursue it, the faster it runs from you. You can invite it through your actions, however.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 10:20am PT
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"I believe, as neuroscience and genetic testing improve, we will learn that most violent criminals have physical reasons for why they broke the law. We may learn that it is not their fault that their brain structures and pathways predispose them to violence just like it is not a diabetic patient’s fault that her blood sugar is high."
"Such advances would have profound repercussions for how we punish crime in this country."
But would they?
I wonder.
Just how much are we (supposed) to "override" our innate moral sentiments (or "moral intuitions") in this evolutionary game of living?
.....
brain damage vs brain difference
"But I would go further... adding something I’ve always believed: every criminal has “brain damage” in the sense that the constitution of their brain, as determined by their environmental history and genetics—in conjunction with the situation in which they found themselves when they transgressed—had no choice but to commit a crime that damages society. Nearly all philosophers agree with that kind of determinism. A criminal could not have done otherwise at the moment of his crime, just as we have no choice about whether to have a sandwich or a salad at lunch." -Jerry Coyne
Taking into acct our innate natural spectrum of differences...
When does a brain difference become brain damage?
.....
Mull this over lunch...
"No matter how “smart” you are, your choices are just as constrained as anyone else’s."
:)
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Mar 18, 2015 - 12:18pm PT
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"Such advances would have profound repercussions for how we punish crime in this country."
Probably not.The "advances" indicated in the above are illusory, and generally will encounter a lack of proof in precisely describing much more than a merely theoretical and speculative deterministic course in human behavior.
At the end of the day society is still confronted with a serial killer,for instance, with an IQ of 130, or higher, who hunts and kills human prey.
His defense lawyer can parade an entire litany of experts who will testify that this killer's physical brain displays neuro-anatomical difficulties processing emotion, guilt, empathy, etc.. Or even,as in the case of Ted Bundy, that his grandparents were both extremely deranged (his grandfather showing a propensity to necrophilia and sadism directed at animals).
Why don't most courts and juries buy into these well-known attempts at letting criminals off the hook? The answer mostly lies with the legal requirement in proving "the insanity plea" as being hinged on the capacity of the perp to know and to discriminate the difference between right and wrong.And to grasp the consequences.
Most habitual criminals, those to be found in prisons and on the streets, do not typically fall into those range of personality disorders that can be shown to be characterized by a demonstrated inability to grasp the illegality of their actions.Nor can it be shown that they suffer from "brain damage" with a causal connection to criminal activity: further producing a cognitive incapacity to know that such activity is in fact wrong,against the law, and hurts others.
A criminal could not have done otherwise at the moment of his crime, just as we have no choice about whether to have a sandwich or a salad at lunch
This kind of unrealistic thinking catapults its underlying determinism into the realm of the magical.
Methinks the author has been a criminal defense attorney for a tad toooo long.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 18, 2015 - 10:11pm PT
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our moral sense justifies the decision that people with "brain damage" should be executed or locked away for life for anti-social behavior.
if you had to decide that without the moral authority, and solely as in protection of the "social order" the entire act of justice takes on quite a different sense.
what is the ultimate moral authority? especially if there is no "free will"?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Mar 18, 2015 - 11:36pm PT
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what is the ultimate moral authority? especially if there is no "free will"?
isn't "anti-social" rebelion the same as "anti-environment" rebellion?
if you stand around, you get eat'in. if you screw someone else's girlfriend, you gt beat'in.
those being the root morals.
but the "'ULTIMATE' moral"?
Is man's, or should man's, "ultimate moral authority". Be that any different than that of the Lion's or the Elephant's?
Possible if they don't have morals yet, maybe it's morals that made us evolve?
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Mar 18, 2015 - 11:51pm PT
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Never got the whole "punishment" thing regarding crime. That thinking seems childish to me. To believe that the unfixable is not unfixable. To me it's a matter of protecting society from those who are a danger or harmful to it. Including revengeful victims.
I don't care why they are dangerous. If in time they are no longer dangerous.. release them. Until then detain them. No need to be mean to them or treat them more poorly than the unfortunate need to detain them requires.. but they can't be in society. I don't think killing a basically harmless prisoner is a power a government with an imperfect legal system should be given. So whether a brain damaged person should be executed is a moot point given that overlying principle.
Of course real justice is a bit more complicated than that..how does one determine if someone is still a hazard to society? jail time may allow some people to correct their behavior, perhaps treatment can help too..then there is deterrence and a need to consider the anger of those who care about the victim or else suffer more violence from childish revenge acts.
Why they are dangerous just doesn't seem to matter.. so what if they could not help it? If the physical structure of their minds forced them to be a problem? What does that have to do with protecting society from them?
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