On second thought the considerations put forward previously could be quite mistaken both on an existential and historical-anthropological level. The golden chain in the West must indeed proceed from the East. But not through neoplatonism and certainly not through Origen, Eckhart and Heidegger. Rather it is in such figures as Sextus and Hume and Kant. There are true gems in the West but part of Western hubris is the great difficulty in coming to terms that its mainstream traditions are flawed and rotten to the core. They cannot be redeemed or purified or idealized or abstracted. The western religious spirit is so rotten than even in its own physicalist negation it propagates the same essence. Dasein is sakkayaditthi (cf. Merleau-Ponty). A detailed phenomenological analysis of an illusory limiting experience is no less illusory for that. But more brilliant is the Buddhist philosophical insight on how to overcome Dasein. Thus much of our work can be described as attempting to present some aspects of such a super-phenomenology. Anatta and Atheism in its genuine sense (the absence of introducing false constructions, separations and selections in the purity of thusness), are at the heart of Buddhism and is found in many priceless original sources in the West, and are humanity's fundamental step to individual and collective authenticity, progress and liberation. The direct liberating knowledge and insight of anatta is inconceivable in the context of Heidegger's analytic of Dasein. Anatta is the joyous dissolving of Dasein.
The currencies with which we pay taxes to the world: attention and erotic interest. Do not pay. The task of Hercules is the first stage described in Ajahn Brahm's book Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond. The rest is easy. Overcoming the world, not engaging in the world, is authenticity - which renders the ego transparent and flimsy and ready to be transcended. Care is the fundamental ontological-existential power. Do not care beyond what is necessary for your daily bread or helping others according to your means. The first ontological-existential step, detachment from the world, relinquishing the world, abandoning the world, returning unto the authentic being-there which is a being-beyond, a being-far-away, a being which is reconciled with itself. An authentic being which does not pay the tax and tribute to the world (which is attention, care, concern, as well as erotic interest). The authentic being which does not sully its care and concern with the world but has returned into the freedom and purity of its own self. The inauthentic being-in-the-world is being thrown in time, drowning in the ocean of time, dragged by time and its storm of past and future. In authentic being the world-time and time-in-the-world are dissolved into the present moment illuminated by the pure manifestation of the universal flux of consciousness. In this state of transcendent withdrawal, the fabric of temporality becomes transparent and the eternal present shines through.This authentic being-there is the pure manifestation of the world as the universal flux of consciousness, manifest as such. The inauthentic being is thrown into the world and in world-time and also throws itself and loses itself in this same world and its stormy ocean of time. In authentic being, the transcendent being-there, in the universal flux of consciousness shining in the eternal present, the self itself becomes flimsy and tenuous and ripe to be overcome. There is the beacon of freedom. Although a given religion or spiritual practice can be the occasional cause for the launch into authentic being-there can be no doubt that freedom and authentic being in itself are radically incompatible and antagonistic to any religion. Religions are essentially part of the world and dependent on worldly care and intention and their talk is only intelligible for human inauthentic being-in-the-world.
"how to overcome Dasein"
ReplyDelete"under his master Lao Shang:
After I had served him for the space of three years, my mind
did not venture to reflect on right and wrong, my lips did not ven-
ture to speak of profit and loss. Then, for the first time, my master
bestowed one glance upon me—and that was all.
At the end of five years a change had taken place; my mind was
reflecting on right and wrong, and my lips were speaking of profit
and loss. Then, for the first time, my master relaxed his countenance
and smiled.
At the end of seven years, there was another change. I let my
mind reflect on what it would, but it no longer occupied itself with
right and wrong. I let my lips utter whatsoever they pleased, but
they no longer spoke of profit and loss. Then, at last, my master led
me in to sit on the mat beside him.
At the end of nine years, my mind gave free rein to its reflections,”
my mouth free passage to its speech. Of right and wrong, profit and
loss, I had no knowledge, either as touching myself or others.
Internal and external were blended into unity. After that,
there was no distinction between eye and ear, ear and nose, nose
and mouth: all were the same. My mind was frozen, my body in
dissolution, my flesh and bones all melted together. I was wholly
unconscious of what my body was resting on, or what was under
my feet. I was borne this way and that on the wind, like dry chaff
or leaves falling from a tree. In fact, I knew not whether the wind
was riding on me or I on the wind.? "