No, I mean this in the literal sense. The answer is known before the question is asked.

If attention is what he craves, that's exactly what we deny him. Poor sucker. — OneTwoMany

We? You put this out there. Answer the questions.

Where am I blaming my behavior on anyone? — OneTwoMany

I attribute some of my worst experiences to family and I'm still working on myself to erase the negative impressions created during my growing years. — OneTwoMany

Negative impressions? Life is tough, my friend. Who promised you a picnic?

"Grows up and gets over it." A fine therapeutic outcome. I think what you mean is "survive." Not to be confused with recovery in any sense. — tim wood

Recovery from what?

We live in a country of adult children, so it's not looking too good in that regard.

Parents are what they are, but at some point you have to take responsibility for your own behavior.

I attribute some of my worst experiences to family and I'm still working on myself to erase the negative impressions created during my growing years. — OneTwoMany

Eventually everybody grows-up and gets over it.

However, what I would add is that there has to be an emotional element to motivate the concern in the first place. — Jack Cummins

Emotion is about self and only serves to confuse interests. Compassion is only about other. It is clarity that will guide you, not emotion (which tends towards projection).

So, we could say that compassion is a whole way of perceiving need correctly. The vision of needs is perhaps central and is one which goes beyond superficialities and identifies the root concerns, such as poverty, or emotional suffering. These form the basis for action but the perceptual vision is the foundation for all else. Perhaps, we could say that it is more than a feeling, and more a feeling toned evaluation of suffering and need. — Jack Cummins

Compassion really isn't about feelings or need (although it can be). It's about clarity that brings about wisdom that tells one what (if anything) is needed. Most times, people just need to talk it out and thereby solve the issue themselves. Allowing this process to play-out is true compassion as it avoids creating/sustaining the cycle of unrelenting dependency.

How much wood can woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood? :)

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I agree with you, and (as well) standby my suggestion that the answer ALWAYS comes before the question.

Yeah, you could say that, but true compassion is being able to see the issue for what it actually is and then act in a way where you can effect the most appropriate help (which in many cases is doing absolutely nothing except listening).

The key to everything in life is clarity (seeing things for what they really are).

Compassion is_______________________? — tim wood

...the manifestation of that wisdom.

Let's see. Is compassion justice or injustice, or just no justice at all? Or why not try the old tool of genus and species and special features? Until you can assay some response, this thread is probably DOA. — tim wood

I believe the Buddhists got it right when they suggested that compassion and wisdom are intimately intertwined.

Without wisdom (the ability to see with clarity), compassion cannot properly manifest (instead replaced by feelings of sorrow). Feeling sorry so someone is about ourselves and does not aid (and many times hinders) the person we are trying to help.

I agree. Not many are able to transcend thinking and become one with the object. — OneTwoMany

I believe that everybody experiences this now and again, but with people so connected to all kinds of outside influences, it is as if they are being controlled remotely.

An idea apt for the occasion is catch-22. To discover the truth that thinking is overrated one must think. So, do you believe the conclusion that thinking is overrated and make that part of your philosophy or do you appreciate the thinking that led you to the conclusion that thinking is overrated and draw the second inference that no, thinking isn't overrated. — TheMadFool

I fear if I add anything, I will just be proving my point.

I am reminded of Heidegger saying that before we cross a bridge we are already on the other side. — Gregory

It's just like the answer coming before the question.

I would like to suggest that our best experiences occur when we transcend thinking, that is, when we (essentially) become one with the object of our endeavor.

It is thinking that takes actual experience and makes it into something more/less grandiose. Either way, you miss out and (in the end) suffer the consequences.

It's alive! It's alive!

To summarize, two words - "never" and "always" - that are about absolute certainty are used to full effect, in complete accordance with their definitions, without the slightest change, in a domain about uncertainty. Paradox? Or is this a case of "this is not even wrong"? — TheMadFool

Never and always only work within a specific framework, because things are inconstant flux in the whole. So, if you define your world as having the only the numbers 1 and 2, then never 3. In the entire mathematical system, this would not apply as Outlanders' example revels.

If you want to get picky, then you can get rid of 2 as well (even in your closed system) as it is fairly easy to make the case that there is no such thing as 2 (all things being unique).

It's thinking, you can do whatever you want.

I think this is why conservativism is always on the wrong side of history. — Kenosha Kid

Think about what you just wrote. Are there things in your life that work for you or do you just change everything all the time for the sake of change?

If your thinking is unbalanced, you are probably wrong. Extreme positions create extreme outcomes (which are rarely a good thing).

That stopped in the 20th century, did it? Did women know this? That's half the population. Ethnic minorities? Homosexuals? What about people just born poor who didn't have the option of Harvard or Oxford? — Kenosha Kid

That's over with. This is 2021 and you need to move on.

There will ALWAYS be people that have advantages. Put you big boy pants on and deal with it.

Another interesting one was Kahneman's study of stock traders. — Kenosha Kid

Stock traders?

Are you telling me that you have bought into the narrative that everybody who is successful is so because they were born into it? You are playing the ultimate victim card.

This isn't 18th and 19th century Europe. In the U.S., most people who are successful had to work their asses off (not counting the "some thing for nothing" sock market crowd).

You work your ass off, have half a brain, and you're probably going to do pretty well.

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. — St. Augustine

According to St. Augustine, time is everything.

Meditation, like everything else, is a circle game. You end up back where you started with a new perspective. One of the last things to let go of is the thought that somehow you are "different." It is said that when the historical Buddha reached the apogee of enlightenment, he said, "I have achieved absolutely nothing," meaning that it was only his ability to quiet his mind that had changed.
— synthesis

You see, I disagree with this, at least the way it is stated. I won't bring a lot of names into it, but keep it close to simple sense making. Being in love: what IS this? And what is horrible torture? The dimensions of our existence go deep into the extremes. Meditation does not take one away from this into a neutral pain free existence, rather, purifies this struggle down to an essential, palpable joy. — Constance

There are many types of meditation and some are designed to bring joy, but this is not Zen (which I believe gets to the core). The idea in Zen is to simply be with whatever comes your way. Good comes, you experience good, bad comes, you experience bad. No discrimination. The idea is not to be happy or joyful (feelings that create further karma), instead, it is to simply 'be.'

Buddhists talk about emptiness, but I have always taken this to mean empty of rigorous interpretative tendencies of being a person in the world. As far as the nature of experience, there was a fullness, a completeness. What one achieves is an absolute nothing in thought and belief, in the distractions that would pull you this way and that, but not in the content: a uniform bliss that issues from one's "Buddha nature" which is always there, always has been, but cluttered with and occluded by engagements, the source of our misery and our foolishness" these are empty for all we can say is thereby conditioned by language and language takes us into the very world of differences we are trying to escape.{/quote]

Have you ever gotten so involved with a task and all of a sudden a hour went by in a minute? That's close to what it is. Any good feelings you might enjoy are probably the relief felt as the burden of the world is being lifted from your shoulders. Just being is reward enough.
— Constance

And to me, there is no question, meditation IS an escape, it is THE escape; it is death with a pulse. — Constance

Actually, it is the opposite, a portal to things as they truly are (or at least as close as we can get). When you are able to see the truth of the matter, what is there from which to escape? Living without fear means that you can embrace all experience, the good to enjoy, the bad to learn from and grow.

"Burn the Buddha" is the phrase many use to sum-up the situation. The paradox of Buddhism (the religion) is that what makes it so inviting creates massive attachment for most of its followers. The Buddha understood that very few would intuitively, "get it," and created The Path.
— synthesis

Burn the Buddha. Meister Eckhart infamously prayed to God to be rid of God. I think he understood attachment in the way you describe. Attachment at the basic level is conceptual and affective, these are joined. One way to look at it: philosophy in its truest form is deconstruction: tearing down the illusions that we know the world. Meditation, on the other hand, and this has to be looked at closely, is the pursuit of affect: we meditate to pursue, not conceptual or propositional wisdom, but a higher, more profound experience or affect, that is, emotion. I know, Buddhists don't talk like this, like Christians talk about God's love, but they are living in the same world and it is just the terminology that is different. Love is just happiness, joy, bliss; and meditation seeks this, off the charts! — Constance

Some forms of meditation do pursue what you describe above, but if you dabble in the knowable, you must be willing to take the bad with the good.

I was drawn to Zen because it gets down to the heart of the matter. There is only one lesson in Zen, meditate. Everything there is to get you will derive from your practice. The words are simply pointing the way. You would be amazed at how many people who have been students for many, many years refuse to understand (more that they simply cannot give up critical thought for even a moment).
— synthesis

Philosophy is purely pragmatic: just to point the way, as you say, and I think this is right. Jnana yoga is the way of deconstruction, and it does work, but is limited. It can open a door. The most effective philosophy is apophatic, for once one goes through a review of all the assaults on common sense philosophy presents, one is led to see that the world is utterly transcendental, and this can be revelatory. Alas, most philosophers are transfixed by their own cleverness, which is, frankly, fun, if you're good at it. But it goes nowhere. — Constance

Actually, it goes straight to Hell!

I wish I was adept in philosophy so I could carry on an intelligent conversation with you but it has been so many years ago and its importance has waned. I am a follower of the Tang Dynasty Chan masters (as are many) and Huang Po is perhaps my favorite master of the "shit or get off the pot" style of teaching. I completely fell into line when I read his words...

"Open your mouth and you have already lost it."

I believe the true liberation in Zen (for me) was the realization that not only can you put down the burden of having to figure everything out, but there is nothing to figure out. It's all right there if only you can open your eyes and still your mind.
— synthesis

I have always taken Zen to be where one goes if one is absolutely committed, I mean, solidly on the road to "understanding" at the most basic level. What one witnesses in this path must require extraordinary discipline but what one "sees" must be just extraordinary. Not, I would say, a "nothing" but a living in the pure present. I can only imagine. I have had intimations, which is why I have so much respect for it. There is in this something that far surpasses all other things. — Constance

The interesting thing is that most students attracted to Zen are highly intelligent (which makes it more difficult to give up critical thought) and have searched a great deal. The truly committed almost always come from a very serious life event (I lost my son five days after his birth).

It does take a great deal of commitment and sacrifice but the rewards (for me) have been incalculable. Although I feel as if I have been alone for a long, long time (even though I am happily married), it's the price you pay for discovering a way to live life moment to moment, without fear, without remorse, with the goal of helping others along their path your guiding light.

This is why it is (generally speaking) important to have (qualified) teachers attempt to explain things which resist intellectualization (which is pretty much everything :).

I would imagine that scholars will continue their discussions on all the different aspects of (every damn thing) because this is what they do, but it all comes down to experience.

There are many interpretations of "release" in Eastern thought. To me, the only one which makes sense is it's essence, the mind which is still, accepting all without discrimination.

Btw, I spent six months with Thanissaro Bhikku at his Thai Forest Tradition monastery in CA. Wonderful meditation teacher and expansive intellect.

Some successful people literally just inherit their money or succeed with an investment or use their parent's connections to land a sweet job, but others genuinely do grind and hustle and those are the ones you gotta admire. There are plenty of examples of both and plenty of successful people who are borderline admirable. — BitconnectCarlos

I believe you equate success with wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most wealthy people I have known over the years are pretty miserable (unsuccessful).

More like it takes funds to pay for such education but if philosophy hasn't answered anything important then why do we bother teaching it? Just to sit on a treadmill? — Darkneos

Because it can be a stepping stone to more important endeavors.

The study of philosophy should not be taught in universities but instead it should be part of a personal quest. Who cares what somebody else thinks about xyz's writing? If you want a critique, there are more than enough available in a library or online.

People who are successful are so because they have the motivation to be such.
— synthesis

This is just right wing propaganda, though. There's no actual truth to it; it's just something privileged people promote to justify the perpetuation of their privilege. — Kenosha Kid

Right-wing propaganda? No, I believe this is common sense. Do you see everything through your political spectacles?

If you have achieved any success in your life, did it not come from your motivation to succeed? Do you believe that all people who happen to be more fortunate through [whatever] are just handed success? This would be a very naive pov.

Miguel, there is good and bad in all things. You chose to see only the bad in that which you don't particularly like and only the good in that you do like.

People on both sides used to understand this and work towards consensus. Otherwise, both sides behave like victims and authoritarians.

And btw, the other side kind of sees the liberal/left as being victims, as well. Isn't that what identity politics is all about, who can portray themselves as the biggest victim?

Victim-hood is perhaps the shortest road to hell in existence.

One of the issues many meditators deal with is the divide you accurately describe above, that is, existing in the relative (intellectual) when in the world of knowing and human interaction, and The Absolute (or thereabouts) when one is in meditation. As you may be aware, the goal of any structured meditation is to hone your practice to the point where you bring it into everyday life, so eventually the divide narrows.
— synthesis

If you bring it into everyday life, then you will live in a different world. And very, very few will understand you. Meditation makes you into something of a cult of one, for even those who share your interests remain outside. And it is not selfishness, as some might suspect. Just the opposite. — Constance

Meditation, like everything else, is a circle game. You end up back where you started with a new perspective. One of the last things to let go of is the thought that somehow you are "different." It is said that when the historical Buddha reached the apogee of enlightenment, he said, "I have achieved absolutely nothing," meaning that it was only his ability to quiet his mind that had changed.

Very interesting. I'll have to give that some thought as it's been a while since I've delved too much into that sort of thing. What I did get out of my readings many years ago was that simplicity is truth, and Simplicity is Truth. The simpler ideas become, the closer to the truth they get, because it is the process of intellectualization that drives them (anything knowable) further and further into obscurity. Peel back layer after layer of meaning, and there is the truth at its core...the quiet mind.
— synthesis

I wish I could do this better. But in my favor, I am a bit of a natural. Buddhists talk about detachment and I have always known exactly what they meant. The quiet mind is an openness to the world. I can't say I know how this works with great clarity, but as I see it, to look out into things the sense of "I" is an opaque interpretation and the hardest part of meditation is to undo the self that is "quiet" for we think we know what it is to be quiet but don't. The self, relaxed and controlled, is still tacitly interpreting the world; this is what it means to "know" (Reminds me of Dionysus the Areopagite's Cloud of Knowing. Christian mystics, like Eckhart, were not far from this matter here. One does have to put aside all the Christian metaphysics, same as with Kierkegaard). — Constance

"Burn the Buddha" is the phrase many use to sum-up the situation. The paradox of Buddhism (the religion) is that what makes it so inviting creates massive attachment for most of its followers. The Buddha understood that very few would intuitively, "get it," and created The Path.

I was drawn to Zen because it gets down to the heart of the matter. There is only one lesson in Zen, meditate. Everything there is to get you will derive from your practice. The words are simply pointing the way. You would be amazed at how many people who have been students for many, many years refuse to understand (more that they simply cannot give up critical thought for even a moment).

I think Derrida is the final philosopher. He deconstructs the self in essence telling us such an idea is constructed like everything else. Constructed in time (time: a concept also constructed, which is the basic idea of hermeneutics). Caputo (See his "The Weakness of God) claims this is where negative theology leads (the East has its "neti, neti" method; the West calls this apophatic theology). I have read that Zen looks at the "space between moments" to identify liberation. They are all talking about the same world, the same encounter, from Husserl to Hinduism.

I am by no means adept in any of this, but I do know what it is like touch on that immaculate clarity and freedom. I take all of this seriously because I naturally inclined to do so. It is like a calling. Much work to do. Worth every moment. — Constance

I wish I was adept in philosophy so I could carry on an intelligent conversation with you but it has been so many years ago and its importance has waned. I am a follower of the Tang Dynasty Chan masters (as are many) and Huang Po is perhaps my favorite master of the "shit or get off the pot" style of teaching. I completely fell into line when I read his words...

"Open your mouth and you have already lost it."

I believe the true liberation in Zen (for me) was the realization that not only can you put down the burden of having to figure everything out, but there is nothing to figure out. It's all right there if only you can open your eyes and still your mind.

Even if you thought it to be advantageous, there is no way to equalize outcome.
— synthesis

That's not a reason to perpetuate systematic inequality, though. Minimising something bad isn't pointless just because 0 is unattainable. If you tried to reduce your Covid risk to zero, for instance, you'd be Howard Hughesing it within a week! :rofl: — Kenosha Kid

You can not intervene in 8+B people's lives to secure whatever outcome you believe would be ideal, but you can work towards maximizing opportunity and then allowing individuals to make of it what they will. People who are successful are so because they have the motivation to be such. This is instilled by the family, the culture, and most importantly, the individual themselves.

Life is pretty much a bell curve.

Exactly.

And what does the university have to do with it?

The world is a language and cultural construct. When one is with others, structures of language and culture are engaged, reinforcing the reality these create. Pulling away from others is like annihilating the world as we know it, the one of distinct values and conversational possibilities that fill time and interests. — Constance

One of the issues many meditators deal with is the divide you accurately describe above, that is, existing in the relative (intellectual) when in the world of knowing and human interaction, and The Absolute (or thereabouts) when one is in meditation. As you may be aware, the goal of any structured meditation is to hone your practice to the point where you bring it into everyday life, so eventually the divide narrows.

Interesting to consider Derrida, obliquely, that is: to step into a moment in time is to be in a compromised reality, for what makes the mundane event, whatever it is, mundane, is the familiarity, the recollections. It wasn't always like this. When we were very young the world was not so thick with knowledge and experience. But at any rate, to observe a lived moment and to know how the actual encounter is instantly seized upon by recollection, what is clear is that the sense of reality is genuinely compromised by a reified past that clutches on the presence of what is there. And its hold is so strong that for most there is never the slightest clue that the language and concerns the past creates are conditioning the present at all. It all is just one big seamless reality. Meditation is an annihilation of this body of presuppositions that are always already there, IN all of our daily affairs, implicitly. — Constance

Very interesting. I'll have to give that some thought as it's been a while since I've delved too much into that sort of thing. What I did get out of my readings many years ago was that simplicity is truth, and Simplicity is Truth. The simpler ideas become, the closer to the truth they get, because it is the process of intellectualization that drives them (anything knowable) further and further into obscurity. Peel back layer after layer of meaning, and there is the truth at its core...the quiet mind.

It gets interesting when the acknowledging of this makes its way into the actual perceptual event and one begins to realize that harbored within one's interior has always been something primordial. Kierkegaard calls this the eternal present. He never meditated of course, but knew how far he was from actually realizing this himself, endlessly self deprecating. — Constance

I'll have to go back and read some of his work. Again, it's been a long time but I do remember enjoying his words.

How seductive it can be to attach to a superbly crafted thought or a very beautiful image, but in the end, we must all learn to allow these temptations to go from whence they came and remain quiescent.

But if one wants to go into it more deeply, it takes sacrifice. — Constance

I came to Zen after a very intensive five year philosophical journey that rendered me completely spent (intellectually).

My introductory (Zen) readings suggested two ideas that I have found prescient, the first being that if you are seriously going down this path, you will do it alone, the other being complementary, "To get everything, you must first give everything up."

It's been over three decades now and I can tell you that both have been true for me. If it is the truth you seek, prepare to go it alone. There are very few people who have the energy/will to delve deeply into the philosophical, and almost nobody willing do the same in the non-intellectual.

The key here is, "end up."

Interesting. There is no doubt that a great deal is going on outside of our consciousness (and as a matter of pure speculation, I would suggest that pretty much everything is taking place in this manner). The amount of information we are subject to is so overwhelming that there would be no way to process it in a conventional manner, i.e., take in the data, consider the data, come to a conclusion.

Being that I can find no evidence that we can have access to reality on any level, the key becomes gaining the skills to "go with the flow" as best as is possible and I have found meditation to be (by far) the best method for myself.

And I agree that most people are not so happy when you challenge their sense of being grounded in the familiar, particularly when it comes to subject matter such as self and reality.

It is said that you end up with the partner you truly deserve.

Stark inequality manifest as an unlevel playing ground is not an economically effective way for the society to organize itself. If person A is heavily advantaged to succeed than person B, the market loses out on the potential successes of person B. Likewise if person B cannot afford what person A makes, the market loses out again. — Kenosha Kid

Even if you thought it to be advantageous, there is no way to equalize outcome. The more people try, the worse things get. What you can do is maximize opportunity and allow nature to take its course. People will do all kinds of things with their opportunity based on an infinite number of reasons that nobody will ever understand.

Thinking that any particular outcome should be lands you in the "playing God" category. If you look around the natural world, you will find basically the same types of results you do in humanity. We are part of nature and will never be able to get around that inconvenient truth.

I claim we live in transcendence, for all things are a presence that is irreducible. This is not a popular idea, though. — Constance

What do you mean by this?

I would have imagined someone pretending to be a doctor would know this already. — counterpunch

cp, you need to grow-up. Thanks for the conversation.