Translation and Transformation

Post-modernism isn't really a thing, it's kinda like "New Age"- more of a label for a group of activities. "Post-modernism" is concerned with surfaces. Post-modernism posits that underneath a surface is a self-referential matrix of creatively anachronistic, stylized, neo-modern mythological motifs. It therefor suggests an appraisal of the surface to see the bent structuralism underneath. Post-modern philosophy is more a critical expose of the warped structure of structuralism than an advertisement for the aesthetics of the post-modern approach to art.

Chris
 
Thanks Chris, very informative. Does this relate to deconstructionism? I always wondered about this
 
Hi Paladin —

I really wanted to contribute more to this debate, but every time I run out of time, and then the thing's moved on ...

I think there's a lot of mileage in Translation and Transformation, but if you want me to come at it from a Catholic perspective, then two things straight off.

The first is there's a T missing — Transcendance.
I cannot discuss this meaningfully and leave God out of the equation, after all, and I don't think Wilbur allows for the operation of grace? One of my Perennialist philosophy authors is a Tibetan Buddhist who has written on this very topic, in a positive manner, albeit different to how i would present it, but profoundly.

Wilbur does seem to be a 'self-power' type, and it is axiomatic in the Christian philosophic understanding of the term that a thing cannot transcend itself, cannot act other than of its nature, so there's a discussion right there.

The second is the tension between justice and mercy.
In the Christian tradition, Jesus continually highlights the last person you'd think of as being 'justified' (ie saved/redeemed/delivered) by God — the poor widow, the publican in the temple ... and are these not just the types Wilbur might write off as translation but not transformed?

Thomas
 
I see what you mean Thomas, it seems problematic from a Catholic standpoint. I wonder how Br. Steindel-Rast, and Father Keating resolve this as they both seem part of the "integral" entourage so to speak.
I do think however, that Wilber's idea of transformation would include a definition of transcendance, though probably not from a God centered view.
Even though many of us have followed a religion or path, and have had some success in translating from older, dysfunctional behavior to becoming a better human being there is still a hunger for more. Now, some may claim we are merely looking for another construct to provide some relief from an inherrent existential angst, and would happily embrace another construct, more complex than the last to ease the pain.
Still, the other function of religion goes beyond this aspect for the self begins to dissolve into the Beloved as it did for St. John of the Cross and others. Regardless how we frame it, the next step beyond becoming a better human, must be to leave what we think is ourselves behind, to surrender even a healthy sense of self for what lies beyond the bend in the undergrowth, for at this point we cannot travel both paths and remain one traveler can we?
 
Hi Mark,

I haven't read this Wilbur guy. I read the link from the OP. It seems to me that Wilbur is equating the annihilation of the separate self with transformation. Couple of quotes:
But with transformation, the very process of translation itself is challenged, witnessed, undermined and eventually dismantled.
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This is what deconstruction is after.
With typical translation, the self (or subject) is given a new way to think about the world (or objects); but with radical transformation, the self itself is inquired into, looked into, grabbed by its throat and literally throttled to death.
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This is where East doesn't meet West. My question is, if the self is given a new way to think doesn't that add to self? And how is this added-to self going to start annihilating itself? How does superimposing programming over programming subtract self? The point of self deconstruction is to strip away the patina of accepted meaning and see things as they are on the very surface. The annihilation of the self is never the goal. This is an essential difference in philosophy between the East and West.

I don't know why it seems so defacto attractive to folks to give up the self. I like my self.

Chris
 
You make a great point Chris, and for what its worth, I like your self too :)

I guess having come through the twelve step model I have my own idea of what Wilber is saying. There was a time when I didn't think much of myself, as a matter of fact I remember a day when I was willing to walk out in traffic if only to spare the planet my presence and maybe quit using the oxygen that a good person could be breathing. It has been a long haul since then and I had to learn that one such as I had some inherent worth. As the years have passed I understand now that I, character defects, shortcomings and all have a right to be here, and there are those who actually love me just as I am! (Imagine that!)
But now, as I sit in quiet meditation, I realize that this thing I call "me" is not what I had thought. I'm not even sure what I'm talking about here, but looking deeply within myself, well, there are times when there is not me. I know that makes little sense. But during the times of not me there is only isness, and it seems wonderful and deep, and I know that which is me serves as a function, a vehicle if you will made up of ideas almost like software that I can return to at any time.
It's those little spaces in between the thoughts that are so freeing, refreshing. Rather than feeling empty at the loss of self, I see a fullness, and yet even here there exists a subtle duality.
You see I don't even know what I'm talking about here, just trying to express something that still evades any description.
Completely ordinary, very every-day kind of stuff, but again something more.
Hell, I don't know, I might be making this stuff up as I go along :)
 
I understand what you're saying Mark. I guess my idea is that if all the programming and garbage were removed the self and the not self would merge so that both function the way they're meant to...kinda thing. As it is, it seems to me, the not-self, being separated, takes the form of yet another self: an idealized self, which just adds another layer of confusion.

Chris
 
I agree Chris, it seems every attempt to leave self behind results in the creation of another self, just trickier. And yet there are those who seem to have learned the trick of doing nothing. I wonder
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
I understand what you're saying Mark. I guess my idea is that if all the programming and garbage were removed the self and the not self would merge so that both function the way they're meant to...kinda thing. As it is, it seems to me, the not-self, being separated, takes the form of yet another self: an idealized self, which just adds another layer of confusion.

Chris
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Hi, Chris. You might be interested in comparing this to The Eight Consciousnesses, especially what it says about the seventh and eighth consciousnesses. It seems to parallel what you are expressing. :)
 
Hi SG,
I really like the reading on the eighth consciousness :)

There was a poem by Peter Handke that I posted once before but I think this stanza is what haunts me. As if there was a time when the questions of existence seemed more natural.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?


And again in the original language, only because I find it even more beautiful in German :)

Als das Kind Kind war,
war es die Zeit der folgenden Fragen:
Warum bin ich ich und warum nicht du?
Warum bin ich hier und warum nicht dort?
Wann begann die Zeit und wo endet der Raum?
Ist das Leben unter der Sonne nicht bloß ein Traum?
Ist was ich sehe und höre und rieche
nicht bloß der Schein einer Welt vor der Welt?
Gibt es tatsächlich das Böse und Leute,
die wirklich die Bösen sind?
Wie kann es sein, daß ich, der ich bin,
bevor ich wurde, nicht war,
und daß einmal ich, der ich bin,
nicht mehr der ich bin, sein werde?
 
That whole "self" vs. "other" power dynamic is indeed a tricky one in that using self to transcend self does allow for a very subtle form of reinforcing self- an issue Zen folk have long commented upon, thus some have blended their zen practice with the "other power" Pureland approach. Wilber seems more acutely aware of that facet now than he was in past years-that's why I found the article I had posted here, Thonas, about the "3 faces of God" interesting in which he notes in passing that via his ongoin dialogue with Father Keating he had come to an an appreciation of the second perspective as he calls it or second face of God which is more devotional, seeing the Divine as a divine Other to which one surenders. Thomas, I'd be interested in hearing what your Tibetan Buddhist mentor had to say re the subject of grace and whether his/her view was different from how that notion is understood in Pureland Buddhism as Tariki had often discussed it @ CR. As for my practice, when I'm not being too lazy to practice, it tends to naturally flow between "self"& "other" powered approaches. take care all, earl
 
seattlegal said:
Hi, Chris. You might be interested in comparing this to The Eight Consciousnesses, especially what it says about the seventh and eighth consciousnesses. It seems to parallel what you are expressing. :)
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Hi SG!

Yeah, that's a really nice little resource. Thanks, I bookmarked it. I like the eightfold layout of consciousness from this perspective, it's a handy device.

Here's a question: What part of us enjoys life? The not-self self, or the self-self? I'm thinking about Mark describing the joy of those little garden variety mini-zen experiences of simple being-ness. But what I want to know is who the enjoyer of that is? Not-self? Self? I think it's self enjoying the not-self experience. Makes me think of what it's like to snow ski when you're going just a hair faster than you can actually control, or watching a camp fire in the woods until you relax into that no thought zone.

Chris
 
Back to SG's point:

If I understand correctly there are three modes of knowledge: direct, inference, and fallacy. I agree to that. It's simple and correct. We get direct knowledge from our senses, and everything else is inference and fallacious connections. That right there explains why it's so important to not know.:) But human evolution seems to be about the self. Connecting ourselves with other selves to spawn culture and learn to control our destiny.

Every religion has its sacrament of salt-peter. Religion goes with science and politics, but mostly politics. It's gluey in a lot of ways, but somewhere in the dogma is always an appeal to conform by minimizing one's self. This works out well when the interests of the whole only provide for a minimum of sustenance for the individual. Christianity reinforces the sacrifice of self, as does Islam. Eastern religions seek the annihilation of the self in the service of enlightenment. All religions provide for a superior self in some hereafter as compensation for sacrifice in the now. Looking down from space one would see these machinations as the ideological waste effluent of the need for religion to provide social order and cultural identity.

Chris
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
Hi SG!

Yeah, that's a really nice little resource. Thanks, I bookmarked it. I like the eightfold layout of consciousness from this perspective, it's a handy device.

Here's a question: What part of us enjoys life? The not-self self, or the self-self? I'm thinking about Mark describing the joy of those little garden variety mini-zen experiences of simple being-ness. But what I want to know is who the enjoyer of that is? Not-self? Self? I think it's self enjoying the not-self experience. Makes me think of what it's like to snow ski when you're going just a hair faster than you can actually control, or watching a camp fire in the woods until you relax into that no thought zone.

Chris
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Ah one of the great mind twisters in Buddhism-"who"/"what" is enlightened?:) Zen teachers going way back when were great with answers that didn't engage the mind of "understanding" but rather were quips to take one beyond the endless musings of ordinary mind. So here's one by the "founder" of Chan which led to Zen, Bodidharma:

"If you use the mind to study reality, you won't understand mind or reality. If you study reality without using mind, you will understand both."

I trust that cleared it up. :D earl
 
Thank you Thomas! I'd heard of Pallis. Will ask my local library to obtain this book. Have you studied with him?-what a wonderful opportunity. Where do you study? For an example of 1 school's approach to combining zen and pureland there's Obaku Zen:

Self Power, Other Power

have a good one all, earl
 
Hi Earl —

You want "Sword of Gnosis" published by Fons Vitae, ed. Jacob Needleman.

I never met Pallis, a Greek, living in London, who converted to Tibetan Buddhism. I read an essay The Veil of the Temple and he gave me the hermeneutic key to Christian symbolism. That and the other essays are in the above anthology.

Pallis was a friend of Martin Lings, a Sufi whom I did have the pleasure of seeing, delivering two lectures on Islam. Both were philsophers of the Perennial Tradition. Pallis and Lings visited René Guénon in Cairo to convince him that Buddhism was not a Hindu heresy!

Pallis was asked to deliver a paper by the Dalai Lama (at his request) when he was unable to present the paper himself. This is just one instance of the regard with which the Perennialists were regarded by the orthodox of all traditions.

Meantime I'll try and catch up on the stuff you've posted.

Thomas
 
earl said:
So here's one by the "founder" of Chan which led to Zen, Bodidharma:

"If you use the mind to study reality, you won't understand mind or reality. If you study reality without using mind, you will understand both."

I trust that cleared it up. :D earl
Click to expand...

Probably why he doesn't post much on forums.;)

s.
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
Eastern religions seek the annihilation of the self in the service of enlightenment. All religions provide for a superior self in some hereafter as compensation for sacrifice in the now.
Chris
Click to expand...

Regarding the existence or non-existence of the self, Wilber using a phrase like “grabbed by its throat and literally throttled to heath” is kind of eye-catching but perhaps somewhat unhelpful. Is the self given a new way to think? Not if “it” doesn’t exist. Can it be attractive to give up the self? Not if “it” does not actually exist in the first place.

Do Eastern religions seek the annihilation of the self in the service of enlightenment? Maybe some religions, not all…What it we mean annihilation of the idea that we have of the “self”? That’s not quite the same as annihilation of the self.

I think people get worried or dismissive because a term like “no-self” seems to undermine our sense of us as beings, of our sense of experiencing a real existence, as it goes to the heart of our living experience of being conscious, of “being”…

When looked into, it is (to me) a more honest and accurate understanding (a more realistic description) of what this thing is that we call our “self”. To have the idea that we have a persistent, unchanging mental construct that we label our “self” (and in some religions our “soul”) is as delusional as having the idea that we have a persistent, unchanging physical body.

“No self” does not mean we do not exist, or the universe we perceive does not exist, or any other such scary notion (although such philosophies do exist of course), it is merely pointing towards the more accurate understanding of what we are, in so far as second by second, year by year, as a person, we are more accurately described as a process, both physically and mentally. When we see a photo of ourselves as a baby and compare that with our body now (bleurgh:p) this doesn’t cause us to conclude that we have “no body” because our body now is different than our body then, we understand the reality that our body is not a fixed, static entity but a process…

s.
 
So then if we postulate that "self" as differentiated from our real being, that is to say personality or ego ( I hate to use the word ego, too many limiting concepts and connotations there) is an idea or perhaps more accurately a conglomeration of cultivated ideas through which we filter our everyday, every moment experience, that which we then call self can dissapear leaving us more in touch with "things as it is" as Suzuki would say?
 
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