People like you don't distinguish between 1 and 4, and just use the word "capitalism" as though it meant 1 only, when what everyone else is actually arguing against is 4. — Pfhorrest

People like me? :)

There an infinite versions of everything, but when it comes down to it, there is one economic system. How different societies choose to manipulate it is what it is, but when you look at the most successful countries (on balance), they had the freest economies and populations that enjoyed the highest standards of living.

You think this will go on perpetually? — ssu

Eventually, the music stops.

Big corporations and big government are exactly what some people being free to live up to their full potential looks like. It's you who wants the nanny state to protect you from others living up to their full potential. — baker

You can do better than this.

See, you don't want people to live up to their full potential! You want to put them into prison for that! — baker

Ditto.

It was not really my intention to argue with anybody here about these issues. I wanted to introduce such for those who might have an interest.

I also understand that there are many ways to skin a cat and if your way works for you, that is what's most important.

I have known all kinds of people on many different paths and they were almost all really nice people with virtuous intentions and positive outcomes.

I wish you all the best of luck on your journeys. Keep the faith and never stop trying!

And some of the accomplishments of conceptual thought are: medicine, art, technology, science, space exploration, engineering, the Internet, etc. Not bad eh? — emancipate

In the end, a species ability to adapt to their environment is most important. It doesn't appear to this observer as if our conceptual capacity has led to anything more than getting that much closer to extinction.

No clue about anything (intellectual). Look out into the world of living things and marvel at what these creatures can accomplish without conceptual thought!

And this: the relationship (the relativity) to the truth is as Absolute as things get. We both have clues we are relative to the truth, although the truth evades us. My key point is that the Absolute is a relationship (relativity), not knowledge. So again, if you have “no clue,” we still have a relationship (relativity), and this is Absolute. — d Luke

You are using different definitions which is fine but we end up talking past each other. The Absolute I am referring to is non-intellectual. You state that the Absolute is a relationship, that the relatively of all things is as absolute as it gets.

You might want to consider that any of these words (I use) are simply pointing at the truth and there is no relative and no Absolute. These are ideas that hold no true meaning. It is like the metaphor of crossing the river on the boat of knowledge. Once you get to the other side, do you keep carrying the boat with you or do you let it go?

Chances are that your brain filled in at least one of the blanks above automatically and without your conscious consent. It is continuously making predictions in this manner. Do these predictions reflect ‘reality’? No, they are frequently wrong. Worse, they usually reflect some bias, and worse still, may trigger a maladaptive emotional response.

There are good reasons to value the mental state that your talking about but this ‘seeing reality’ business is pure fantasy. — praxis

It could be a million different things. It never fails to amaze me that (the vast majority) of people simply cannot handle the notion that they have no clue. Coming to this conclusion is the first step down any reasonable path.

'Seeing reality' (or any of the other hundreds of ways of intellectualizing something that cannot be intellecutalized) is not what it is. It is just cutting yourself a break by not having to figure everything (or anything) out. Accept what we can perceive, make the best of it, and move on. OR, you can struggle 24/7/365 and make up all kinds of bizarre reasons for this, that, and the other thing. Your choice.

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk. — Nikolas

Know one thing, know everything. Understanding One-ness, understand The Absolute.

The freedom you seek is not from some metaphorical cave. Accept the limitations of being human by not being tempted to swim across the ocean, fly across in the sky, or engage in conceptual thought.

You mean the same people who led the great January 6th insurrection that completely changed the course of American history!?

I think they should not only keep all the fences and national guard in Washington, DC. (around the Capitol), but even better, fence off the entire city and then build prison walls around the metro area because this is where all the politicians, the lobbyists, and anybody else who has been destroying our democracy needs to be kept for the next 50 years!

People want (the illusion of getting) something for nothing and seem to do just about anything to those ends (including selling-out their kids, parents, you name it).

We have arrived at a place (like in the game of Monopoly) where one player essentially has all the assets and has won the game. It's time to pour all the money, houses, and hotels back into the box-lid and start a new game.

You underestimate resistance. As soon s a person begins to do something they begin to interpret or they wouldn't know what to do. — Nikolas

99.99....% of what you perceive leaves no time for interpretation. Just think about how much is going on in your field of view at once (an infinite number of things). You have the ability to process (before conceptualization) all of this information in order to make your way, but there is no time for interpretation.

If the value of the Zen experience leads to the truth, then a person has to deal with acquired resistance. Krishnamurti gave a good example concerning the power of imagination leading to resistance: “You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it." Krishnamurti[/i]

That is why I prefer contemplation of contradictions rather than meditation as leading towards the Absolute — Nikolas

You are hung-up on form. Things are what they are, correct? You believe you can use your ability to conceptualize to see this truth, but there seem to be all kinds of reasons this is not the case. If we were able to intellectualize the truth, it would be universally applied.

When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door. Simone Weil

It can only be resolved by a quality of mind which can place the contradiction into a higher level of reality dualism is incapable of finding the door. — Nikolas

I get what you are saying but the human intellect is simply not capable of taking an infinite amount of information and processing it in real time (for all kinds of reasons). Most people take forever to process one thing (and then they get it wrong!).

We are on two different paths. Who knows, we both may end up on the Way or where the paths meet. Different strokes for different folks. — Nikolas

There are all kinds of different paths. It really doesn't matter which one you are on, only that you believe in yourself 100%. Good luck to you in your quest!

I am sure you must know what you are talking about, but I have no clue.

True, but I have two essential questions Zen by definition cannot answer. The first is the meaning and purpose of our universe and the second is the meaning and purpose of life including human life within it. — Nikolas

Zen, by definition, answers no questions. It is your own realization that accomplishes the task. The meaning and purpose of life becomes manifest in your actions and cannot be intellectualized.

Humanity has a need to interpret. — Nikolas

Perhaps you should take up the practice of meditation and find out why this is not the case.

I think the current political right in the US are far more corrupt than the political left, mainly due to the influence of big money. — Wayfarer

Is that why BIG tech, mass media, social media, corporate America, Wall Street, Education, and entrenched government are all on the left?

Who is the political right?

Working people pay taxes; they should get benefits. Rich people pay few if any taxes. They should not receive benefits (like tax give-aways). Better yet, just expropriate the to .001%. That's right: Take it all away from the billionaires. — Bitter Crank

The working wealthy pay almost all the taxes in the U.S. The top .01% might not pay much because of their exotic shelters, but the rest pay it and pay it and pay it....

the number of young adults (under 30) dug into their parents' basements
— synthesis

The prime reason for this is the 50-year decline in income (and/or purchasing power) of working class people, and the maldistribution of wealth in the United States. Young adults can not earn enough to set up a home, even in dilapidated efficiencies. Comparison:

1971 - my take-home income: about $100 a week (worked for the RC church--last of the big spenders)
- my rent on a nice efficiency near work: $90 -- that's slightly less than 25% of income.
2020 85% of rental units in the same city are more than the cheapest $700 - 1000 range. To spend only 25% of one's income on rent one now has to bring home $48,000. Young adults might not be able to find a $1000 a month rent — Bitter Crank

The financialization of the U.S. economy speaks to a lot to it but look at the spending habits of the young people. They save zip. Spend it on new cars, vacations, $1000.+ cellphones that last a year, on and on and on. Most of these people deserve exactly what they are getting...nothing.

Nanny-state
— synthesis

The United States is the stingiest, least proactive nanny state among G20 countries. It's the most incompetent, negligent nanny that ever was (maybe after the Soviet Union). — Bitter Crank

Would you be happy if your taxes were 75% if your income instead of 50%? How about 90%? Wouldn't that be wonderful!

The government is NOT your friend.

What you're talking about, what you're criticizing, IS capitalism. The fact that it has become so debt-riddled, so regulated, so corrupted, is 'realpolitik'. You have an idealised picture where everyone is free, nobody has debts, everyone is employed in their rightful occupation. But there's no way the current regime can simply be deconstructed in favour of some idealised, imaginary 'true capitalism'. — Wayfarer

Human social interaction breeds corruption. It is present everywhere, not just in capitalism. So the best you can do it try to control the corruption.

Where did I suggest I have this idealized picture of anything? Look at what happened over the past 200 years and see if humanity is not 100x's better-off.

What is your alternative?

The system you are scorning IS that system. If, as you suggest, all government intervention and support was withdrawn, the ultra-wealthy, the 1%, woud withdraw to their gated estates and private islands, the 'preppers' to their bunkers. The remainded of economy would collapse into anarchy, there would be hundreds of millions of deaths. Just like Venezuala, but on a massive scale. — Wayfarer

My friend, you need to read up on how this economic system actually works. If you do not understand the monetary system, international trade and finance, you cannot understand what has been taking place over the past 50 years. The economic system has been horrible corrupted by political hacks and their overlords.

This happens every 75 years or thereabout so you have to route out the corruption. Capitalism has its flaws, don't get me wrong, but it there's a great deal about the way it works really well with freedom.

Yes, it's called political corruption and it is non-discriminatory.

What system would you rather live under, corrupted capitalism, corrupted Communism (ala the USSR) or corrupted Socialism (ala Venezuela)?

It is what it is and you make the best of it. There is no other economic system (unless you have come up with another one).

In all human (social) endeavor, you do what you can to keep the corruption to a minimum. This will allow for the best outcomes.

Yes, I know first hand. Your point?

What 'system'? Laissez-faire capitalism? The 'invisible hand' of the market? Those who can't get by without assistance - leave them to die so 'the system' can return to 'normality'? — Wayfarer

Capitalism is the only economic system there is. "Communism" is state-capitalism and socialism is capitalism with the profits redistributed.

The bottom-line is that the market (society) does a MUCH better job of making choices that a bunch of bureaucrats that inevitably have their heads up their asses (best case scenario)..

It's not right to discuss the meanings of the tripartite soul and its repercussions from the corruption of our lower nature on your thread but how IYO does Zen understand resistance? Why does the human organism oppose Zen and adopt imagination to take its place? Can the struggle with imagination take place without the conscious mind acting as a purification protecting efforts of meditation from turning into imagination and the opposite of its intent? — Nikolas

Zen is the Japanese word for meditation. Zen doesn't understand anything. It's not about understanding, instead it's about realization through direct experience.

My own realization has told me that we cannot understand anything in its real sense. What we do understand is really not understanding, it's just that things seem to work for reasons (although unknown) seem to conform to current rationale.

It's just like science. Although science is ALWAYS changing and logic would suggest that nothing that is thought to be true today will be afforded the same privilege in the future, people still cling to contemporary scientific principles as if they were written in stone and handed down to Moses by God Himself.

Nobody knows how thinking works. Nobody really knows how anything works (although you'd never know by listening to the experts go on and on and on...). After all, even the absolute simplest of things is brought into being by an infinite number of events preceding. And this is happening each and every moment.

Why bother yourself about incredibly complex ideas such as imagination when when we can never (really) understand something elemental like why we still say, "God Bless you," after somebody sneezes!

Thinking is a tool and a rather crude one at that. Although critical to our daily functioning, people become over-dependent on it by taking 'what is' and making it into 'what isn't' (BIG time). Everything that can be known is so before your critical thinking kicks-in at which time the personal revisions begin and do not cease until you have taken what is pure and turned it into your personal fantasy (good, bad, or indifferent).

Plato's description of the tripartite soul is easiest to understand. As explained in the chariot analogy, the horse on the left refers to our lower parts which have become corrupt. How can the driver fix a sick horse which denies us the ability to objectively experience as a normal human being? — Nikolas

Nothing against Plato, I am sure he was a brilliant guy and all that, but making the pile of bullshit higher doesn't make it any more correct.

This isn't that complicated. Experience. Need more be said?

By golly, what are you complaining about then??! — baker

I am afraid that people like you who desire salvation (from the challenges of life) feel that everybody else must change the way they think in order to feel as desperate as you do.

It's leftist religion. "Save me, save me, save me" (and save everybody else because they're going to have to pay for it).

All one needs to do to in order to live in a country where you are free to live up to your potential, is to reconceptualize "free" and "live up to your potential", so that the new concepts match one's reality, whatever that may be. — baker

Just like the people in the USSR, Communist China, and Nazi Germany had to "reconceptualize" what freedom and living up to your potential was.

No thank you. My wagon will always remained hitched to the traditional conception of American freedom.

How much socialism do you want? Who doesn't want to live in a country where you are free to live up to your potential?

Socialism is about lowering the bar far enough so everybody is miserable.

You need to move on.

Who is Blondie?

The Buddha’s approach is ‘deconstructive’ in a way that is hard for us moderns to understand. It is insight into the nature of experience and in particular the factor that leads to continued rebirth and so suffering. — Wayfarer

It's not difficult to understand at all if you realize that the words are merely pointing at the truth. It is conceptual thought that creates attachment that creates suffering.

Getting back to the point of the thread, you can only have one situation on the ground, either individuals are free agents or groups (corporate-state) have nearly total control. Morphing adults into children (or never creating the conditions for children to mature into adults) is plan A, as fear and dependency are way all systems impose their will.

Is there anything going on in this country now besides fear and dependency?

I recall reading that when Obama stepped in to save the American automotive industry in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a faction within the Republican Party argued it would be better to let it collapse rather than save it through Government intervention.

Do you think the Republicans were right in saying that? — Wayfarer

Regardless of external conditions, any company that can not remain solvent should be forced into bankruptcy.

Had the government saved no businesses during the pandemic, people would have seen (early-in) just how insane the lockdowns were and policy would have changed.

You MUST allow the system to work.

. An experience requires the simultaneous cooperation of thought, emotions, and sensations. When they consciously work together and react as nature intended, they produce an experience. — Nikolas

According to whom?

They're tragic to the deceased's friends and loved ones. I'm willing to stipulate that the covid deaths are bad but so are the collateral deaths and misery we're inflicting with the endless politicized lockdowns. — fishfry

Most people who died were in their 80s and were going to die of something anyway.

Although people are saddened at another's passing, if they have lived a full life, I am not sure family and friends would see this as being tragic. After all, it's the only thing we know about our lives (that they end).

The lockdowns, OTOH, are the greatest power-grab and policy flaw in the West maybe ever. The fallout from these lockdowns will be felt for decades hence.

How do you define an experience? Experience can be interpreted into fantasy just as easily as reason and they both become partial truths. Socrates wrote of a higher quality of reason called noesis which leads to direct experience. Does satori mean the same? — Nikolas

Experience can be had outside of conceptual thought. Getting into all the other philosophical stuff is really above my pay grade and,as well, specific questions about 'satori" and the like should be directed to a qualified teacher (of which I am not).

Hmm. Not as interesting as it might have been. Poetry only appears more apt than philosophy for this sort of discussion because it is so loose. In the end if there is any merit here it is on the practice of meditation. — Banno

Zen (Japanese, for meditation). There is only one lesson in Zen, meditate. The words simply point to the practice and it is in the practice is where you find realization.

Indeed; and I have been at pains to point out that this is incorrect. — Banno

We're both right, you from a relative perspective, me from an Absolute one. Read Wayfarer's link. He was having a better day than I am having.

Relevant textual source;

https://zenstudiespodcast.com/sandokai-1/ — Wayfarer

That's a pretty good explanation.

What kind of sensory experience can one have to respond to the need for objective meaning? Does sex with the right partner reveal it? — Nikolas

My point was that experience is real, fantasy (thinking) not so much.

Going along with the system" is all there is to 1+1=2. All you have done is recognise that you are part of the game. When you talk to the trees, you begin to move away from the game. The mistake is to think you can tell us about it. — Banno

No, I am the one who says that we cannot really understand anything. What I am trying to do is suggest to a bunch of folks with inquiring minds that there is more out there, but you must embark on your own journey to find it. That's it.

What do you want me to tell you? I am just pointing out inconsistencies in our normal thinking. If you take it further, you will find that these inconsistencies are ubiquitous.