“To create an experience that maybe help people think a little bit.”;──interview with John Madden, film director [Miss Sloane (2016); Jessica Chastain; Jonathan Perera, writers; Max Richter, music].
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To quote Marcel Proust:
Each reader reads only what is already inside herself.
A [TEXT] is only a sort of optical instrument which the
writer offers to let the reader discover for herself
what she would not have found without the aid of the
[TEXT].
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“The social groups to which we belong have their own form of evolution. Some behaviors and norms survive from one generation to the next and others are discouraged. Habits and customs become rituals and rules, which evolve over time into cultures, social systems, laws and institutions, and which exercise a profound influence over which aspects of human nature we express.”, p.362, Al Gore, The future : six drivers of global change, 2013.
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[vehicle]
[ferryboat]
[map]
yana
pp.400-403
YANA means "vehicle"
The Sanskrit word YANA means "vehicle" and is often translated as "ferryboat." The metaphor worked well in ancient India, with its large river systems, seasonal floods and few bridges. Most journeys required traversing water at some point. The Buddha's teaching was the boat that carried you. The Jains also employed the imagery of their great teachers providing a ford, a way to cross the water. But, as we have found with Sanskrit words, there are many possible definitions we would choose. Yana can also mean "a course, a device, a machine, an instrument, a technique, a method, or a means."3 Skillful means [tactic], also known in Sanskritas UPAYA, is the technique that helps the student achieve the goal. In Buddhism we are offered the choice of two kinds of yana or means: the small ferryboat, known as Hinayana, and the larger boat known as Mahayana.
The Hinayana is the small raft that can ferry only one person across to the yonder shore, but the Mahayana (maha means "great") can take a vast number of people and comes with a captain of the ship to guide you, the captain being the bodhisattav. In a one-person raft, you are on your own. Hinayana is a derogatory term; it was coined by the followers of the Mahayana schools. Hinayana literally means "the defective or inferior way." You can see a superior attitude being displayed here, a looking down the nose at the earliest practices. Followers of the earliest Buddhist doctrine called their practice Theravada: the way of the elders, and they feel that they know and follow the original teaching. Followers of Mahayana feel that the Buddha held back his true teaching and offered only the inferior teaching to the early monks, because they would not understand the true doctrine, which was not widely available until long after his departure.
The differences in the two yanas are worthy of investigation: With the rise of Mahayana, a philosophy of ... . <skip the rest of the paragraph>
There are two approaches being offered here: You can work on your own to cross the water to the shore of nirvana, or you can trust someone else to carry you across. In India these are known as the way of the monkey and the way of the kitten: A baby monkey has to cling tightly to his mother as she moves through the trees, or it will fall; a kitten is picked up by the mother and carried by the scruff of the neck and has no choice in the matter. In Japan these two ways are known as JIRIKI, which means "one's own power" and TARIKI or "other power." To rely upon bodhisattva to save you is tariki; however, to save yourself through your own effort is jiriki. Theravada Buddhism is jiriki, the way of the monkey. Mahayana Buddhism is tariki, the way of the kitten.5 (Buddhism; The Religion of of No-Religion by Alan Watts, (Tuttle Publishing), 1999, pages 68-69.)
This divide is also found in Western thought. A British (or perhaps Celtic) monk named Pelagius in the fourth century C.E. taught that man could achieve heaven without divine intervention, through his own efforts. Saint Augustine disagreed and taught that only through divine grace could one be saved. Augustine's view prevailed, and Pelagius' doctrine was declared a heresy. We in the West still have not worked this out: In politics we have extreme conservatives that believe every man should fend for himself and not rely upon the state for assistance (the way of the monkey or jiriki), while liberals believe that state intervention is necessary to help those who cannot help themselves (the way of the kitten or tariki). Strangely, when the field of debate is switched from politics and economics to religion, the positions are reversed: Conservatives believe that only through God's grace can we be saved and individual effort is not enough, which is the view of Saint Augustine; and of Saint Paul, who taught that God gave us the 10 Commandments knowing we couldn't possibly live up to them, and only by His grace can we be freed from sin.6 Liberals in the spiritual traditions, on the other hand, believe that following or trusting in someone else to set you free is not the way to go; it is your journey, and you succeed or fail through your own efforts.
Which is the map that you follow? Is it by your own power that you achieve your desired goals or is it only, at the end of the day, by the grace of a greater power that you are successful? Do you follow this model consistently, or like the conservative and liberals above, do you change your view depending upon circumstance?
(From the Gita to the Grail : exploring yoga stories & western myths,
by Bernie Clark, Blue River press, Indianapolis, copyright © 2014, pp.400-403)
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[Map Making 101]
[map]
[guide]
[representation of reality]
pp.xi-xiii
The original working title of this book was Map Making 101. The intention was to show how stories and myths are simply maps that are used to guide people's lives. A map is never truth: It is symbolic representation of reality, but it cannot be reality itself. What is important about a map or a myth is not whether it is true or not, but whether it is useful. Joseph Campbell's presentation of mythology to the modern reader has proven to be useful: If it weren't, it would not be popular. I will leave it to the scholars to argue about the validity and accuracy of his work, but the utility of his work cannot be denied.
While his book contains novel ideas and associations, I have made no attempt to prove any of the particular points of view, and I am not qualified to do so. The book is meant to educate and provoke thought, not to cite sources and dates. For those who like sources and dates, endnotes are available. What I hope to do is to share some of the stories I have come across that have proven interesting and useful, especially to the yoga students and teachers I have taught.
Occasionally, the way the stories are explained may cause some distress for readers who happen to believe that the story is factually or historically true and is not a myth. This never happens when describing a myth found in someone else's religion but often happens when one's own religious stories are said to be mythical. For many people their maps provide great comfort and a sense of direction to their lives. If we take away the belief that their stories are true, they may feel left adrift and without purpose. However, virtually all religions have a deeper teaching available: When the stories are no longer taken as literally true, the student is able to delve much more deeply inside a more profound mystery. The Christian mystic experiences a "cloud of unknowing," and the Sufi mystic experiences dance with the beloved, while the Jewish mystic finds deeper understanding of the mind of God through the teachings of the Kabbalah.
It is not my intent to take away anyone's cherished beliefs but rather to open a door that may help them go deeper in whatever direction their beliefs point them. The start is knowing that there is more to mythic or spiritual stories, and that we can shine a light on what is hidden.
One last point worth making is that I have made no attempt to reproduce the original mythic stories. Written myths are frozen slices of something that was once alive and changing. It is very difficult to understand the impact of a myth on its original audience because we are NOT they. We do not live in their time and culture, and we do not understand what their lives were like. All we can know is that these stories meant something to them; exactly what, we can only surmise. For this reason, I have tried to tell most of these old stories in a modern, folksy vernacular, not in the original, archaic verse. Through this I hope the stories will resonate with today's reader. I am hoping these stories will prove useful to you.
(From the Gita to the Grail : exploring yoga stories & western myths,
by Bernie Clark, Blue River press, Indianapolis, copyright © 2014, pp.xi-xiii)
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[maps]
[mental models]
[patterns]
pp.xxxix-xL
Remember, we all follow maps, which are the mental models or patterns in our mind. These maps are not normally known to consciousness, but they are there and they are powerful. If we are not happy with the way our life is unfolding, perhaps we are following a map that is not very useful. If we are doing OK in life but wonder how we could do even better, then we can shine a light on the map we are using and see if there are better ones available. And there may be times when our map is perfectly fine, although our path through that map is not well chosen: A better path may be necessary even though we keep using the same map. In any case, we need to know our map!
Once we can see the map in the full light of day, once we can bring it fully into conscious awareness, then we can start to determine whether the map is useful or not. If not, we may decide whether to get a new map or plot a new course within the existing map. Here is some good news: We can always get a new map or take a new path! It is not easy, but it is possible.
Notice, we are not asking whether the map is RIGHT! And here again is the big point: None of our map is right! Every map we follow, every story we believe in, whether consciously or unconsciously, is a REPRESENTATION of the way things actually are; it is not reality. Our maps are not real in this sense. They are real maps, but the maps aren't reality--no matter how attractive and compelling they feel. The game we play is to act "as if" the maps were real--that is where belief is required.
We do not use just one map, and even one map can lead us to many places. We have a multitude of maps in the bureau drawers in our mind. Throughout our life, from childhood to old age, we are told stories that become our maps. Before we can choose a new map or a new way to live, we need to know what stories we believe now.
The journey in this book is one of shining the light of conscious awareness on some of the maps we are using by sharing many of the stories that created the maps. Knowing this, we can decide whether these maps are useful or not. If not, we can gain some idea of where we might find better maps to follow. We can tell ourselves new stories. Perhaps we can incorporate some stories from the East, but this is only stories. To do that we have to understand what these stories mean. Understanding the meaning of these foreign myths makes it possible to select or reject them as candidates for updating our current maps.
Knowing that a myth is a map to our deep psychic landscape, we come to the intention of this book: to shine the light of consciousness inwardly and answer these questions.
What myths do I live by?
Are these myths useful?
Do I need to find better myths?
Which new myths would serve me better?
(From the Gita to the Grail : exploring yoga stories & western myths,
by Bernie Clark, Blue River press, Indianapolis, copyright © 2014, pp.xxxix-xL)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Discordia
The Principia Discordia holds three core principles: the Aneristic Principle (order), the Eristic Principle (disorder) and the notion that both are mere illusions.[6] The following excerpt summarizes these principles:
The Aneristic Principle is that of apparent order; the Eristic Principle is that of apparent disorder. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of pure chaos, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making.
With our concept-making apparatus called "the brain" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us.
The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently.
It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T) True reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept. We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The order is in the grid. That is the Aneristic Principle.
Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be true. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the Aneristic Illusion. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
Disorder is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the Eristic Principle.
The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the Eristic Illusion.
The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.
Reality is the original Rorschach. Verily! So much for all that.[7]
— Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia
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"A map is not the territory"
Eric Temple Bell, "the map is not the thing mapped."
Alfred Korzybski in his 1931 paper: "A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness."
The phrase "A map is not the territory" was first introduced by Alfred Korzybski in his 1931 paper "A Non-Aristotelian System and Its Necessity for Rigour in Mathematics and Physics," presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New Orleans, and later reprinted in Science and Sanity (1933).[3] Korzybski credits mathematician Eric Temple Bell for the related phrase, "the map is not the thing mapped."[4][5] In the article, Korzybski states that "A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness."[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
https://www.generalsemantics.org/Alfred-Korzybski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation
"the map is not the territory" and that "the word is not the thing", encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse conceptual models of reality with reality itself.
"the model is not the data", "all models are wrong", and Alan Watts's "The menu is not the meal."
"all models are wrong" is that "all models are wrong (but some are useful),"
A frequent coda to "all models are wrong" is that "all models are wrong (but some are useful)," which emphasizes the proper framing of recognizing map–territory differences—that is, how and why they are important, what to do about them, and how to live with them properly. The point is not that all maps are useless; rather, the point is simply to maintain critical thinking about the discrepancies: whether or not they are either negligible or significant in each context, how to reduce them (thus iterating a map, or any other model, to become a better version of itself), and so on.
Belgian surrealist René Magritte explored the idea in his painting The Treachery of Images, which depicts a pipe with the caption, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe").
Lewis Carroll, in Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), describes a fictional map with a scale of "a mile to the mile," which proves impractical.
____________________________________
(14.) Hawaii and Buddhism [ ]
pp.260-261
[...]
This pattern survives among the Chinese in Hawaii. Many Chinese born and raised in Hawaii today are Christians. Yet, frequently members of the same family belong to different churches. A Methodist father may have a Catholic son, an Episcopalian daugther, and a "heathen" wife who worships at Chinese temples. Nor do differences in religion seem to hamper family solidarity. A Christian son does not hesitate to participate in the rituals at the Chinese temples if his "pagan" mother requests him to do so.
In brief, when Chinese assume a monotheistic faith they tend to treat it in a polytheistic spirit, or they do not absorb the hostility which characterizes the approach of Western monotheists to other sects of the same creed as well as to all other faiths.
When Westerners take up a polytheistics religion such as Buddhism, it is typical for them to describe themselves defiantly as Buddhists, but nothing else; they then consider Buddha as the only true god, all other gods being mere idols. Furthermore, they are in great haste to initiate religious controversies about Buddhism. One of these long-standing controversies has revolved around the problem of which of two versions of the Buddhist teaching was the "authentic" one.
It will be recalled that Buddha's teachings not only failed to arouse controversy in China but that they were of no interest to the majority of Chinese. In the hands of Western believers, however, the same teachings were highly systematized and elaborately interpreted. The Europeans could not be satisfied until they uncovered the "original" and "pure" teachings of Buddha. In rough form, the basis of their still undecided dispute is as follows: As the time when Buddha lived, the people of his native Indian state spoke two languages. Sanskrit was the learned language used by the elite, while Pali was the colloquial tongue of the plebeians. The situation was comparable to that of France under Charlemagne, at which time the learned Frenchmen spoke an undefiled Latin, while men on the street spoke a corrupted Latin, which later became the French language. So in India, Buddha's teaching were recorded in two languages: the Sanskrit texts conveyed what was known as the
[page 261]
doctrine of Mahayana, and those in Pali became the doctrine of Hinayana. The Chinese Buddhists never doubted that BOTH contained the true teachings of Buddha, but the few Western believers are still trying to decide which ONE of these contains the true teachings of Buddha and which one, therefore, is false. 4
[...]
(Hsu, "Americans & Chinese," [DS 721.H685 1970], pp.260-261)
("Americans and Chinese," Francis L. K. Hsu, 1970, The Natural History Press, pp.260-261)
copyright © 1953, 1970 by Francis L. K. Hsu
4 The Japanese, though polytheistic in comparison with Westerners, are nonetheless much more specific than the Chinese in their adherence to Buddhist creeds. Consequently while Buddhism went to Japan via China, sectarian Buddhism (such as Zen) has reached a height in that country never dreamed of by the Chinese. This and other differences between Japanese and Chinese ways of life are explained in F. L. K. Hsu, "Understanding Japan," op. cit. ([ 'Iemoto: Heart of Japan', Francis L. K. Hsu (1909-1999) ])
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[myth]
[YOU have God within you]
[personal power]
pp.31-32
... Like most Catholics his early images of the Virgin Mary were based on the belief that Mary's virginity was a historical fact; he later learned this is the wrong way to approach a powerful symbol. If you read the mythic images as facts, as one might find in the daily newspapers, they lose their real power. For example, if you are told that two thousands years ago, in a small town in the Middle East, a young virgin gave birth to the Son of God, you might think it interesting, but it would not move you to awe and wonder. However, if you are told that YOU have God within you and that YOU will manifest God without any help from anyone else, then the story has a very different effect. If you read the myth as a message to and about YOU, then the imagery becomes powerful. The 17th-century German mystic Angelus Silesius [1624-1677] said, "Of what use Gabriel's ‘Ave Marie,’ unless he can give the same message to me?"
This is the magic of the myth: It is personal power because it touches that source of energy deep within you. There is no need to take the stories literally. If you do that, you lose their power.
(From the Gita to the Grail : exploring yoga stories & western myths,
by Bernie Clark, Blue River press, Indianapolis, copyright © 2014, pp.31-32 )
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[no road]
[no compass]
[no map]
[no training]
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The emperor of all maladies, 2010
pp.328-329
1995
Maggie Keswick Jencks
Jencks did not know that the STAMP trial would eventually fail.
But Jenck's remission did not last a lifetime: in 1994, just short of her 18th month after transplantation, she relapsed again. She died in July 1995.
In an essay titled A View from the Front Line, Jencks described her experience with cancer as like being woken up midflight on a jumbo jet and then thrown out with a parachute into a foreign landscape without a map:
“There you are, the future patient, quietly progressing with other passengers toward a distant destination when, astonishingly (Why me?) a large hole opens in the floor next to you. People in white coats appear, help you into a parachute and--no time to think--out you go.”
“You descend. You hit the ground.... But where is the enemy? What is the enemy? What is it up to? ...No road. No compass. No map. No training. Is there something you should know and don't
“The white coats are far, far away, strapping others into their parachutes. Occasionally they wave but, even if you ask them, they don't know the answer. They are up there in the Jumbo, involved with parachutes, not map-making.”
The image captured the desolation and desperation of the era. Obsessed with radical and aggressive therapies, oncologists were devising newer and newer parachutes, but with no systematic maps of the quagmire to guide patients and doctors. The War on Cancer was “lost”--in both senses of the word.
(The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2010, )
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Foreword
The history of Maps is as old as travel, discovery, and curiosity about the world. Since the earliest times, cartographers have served mariners with guidance for their explorations, monarchs with portraits of their territories, and scholars with a record of the earth's surface.
Vortwort
Die Geschichte der Karte ist so alt wie das Reisen, die Entdeckungsfahrten und die Wissbegier über die Welt. Seit alten Zeiten haben Kartographen den Seefahren mit Unterlagen für ihre Erkundungen gedient, den Herrschern Aufnahmen ihres Besitzes und den Gelehrten Darstellungener der Erdoberfläche geliefert.
Prefacio
La histori de los mapas es tan antigua como la de los viajes, loas descubrimientos y la curiosidad del hombre por el mundo. Desde hace muho tiempo los cartógrafos han proporcionado guías a los navegantes en sus exploraciones, descripciones de sus territorios a los monarcas y registros de la superficie de la tierra a los eruditos.
Avant-propos
L'histoire des cartes géographiques remonte aussi loin que celle des voyages, des découvertes et du sentiment de curiosité touchant le globe terrestre. Depuis les temps les plus reculés, les cartographes ont servi les marins en les aidant à s'orienter dans leurs voyages d'explorations, les monarques en leur fournissant des représentations de leurs territories, les savants en les documentant sur la surface terrestre.
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• not a rigid road map but principles of navigation
p.33 (pdf 38)
This work is principally social and organizational.
p.33 (pdf 38)
Navigating. Michel Serres' wonderful metaphors of the Northwest Passage is evocative (Serres 1980).
p.33 (pdf 38)
The point, he says, is that the Northwest Passage is ever changing: shifting ice floes mean that last year's route will never be the same as the current one. What we need to teach, then, is not a rigid road map but principles of navigation. There is no one way to design cyber infrastructure, but there are tools we can teach the designers to help them appreciate the true size of the solution space ─ which is often much larger than they may think, if they are tied into technical fixes for all problems.
source:
Paul N. Edwards, Steven J. Jackson, Geoffrey C. Bowker, and Cory P. Knobel, Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics, Tensions, and Design. (Ann Arbor: DeepBlue, 2007),
NSF Grant 0630263
Understanding Infrastructure
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/49353/UnderstandingInfrastructure2007.pdf
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/49353/UnderstandingInfrastructure2007.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
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From the Gita to the Grail
exploring yoga stories & western myths
by Bernie Clark
Blue River press, Indianapolis
copyright © 2014
pp.460-461
The enlightened sage can see a stop sign, know that it is not really a stop sign, but stops anyway; he can live in both the absolute realm beyond concepts and duality and also in the relative world, playing the game just as well as anyone else. Just as an enlightened master knows the reality of the stop sign, he also knows that life has no inherent meaning, and yet he can choose to create meaning, realizing that it really doesn't matter.
You can do this, too, if you update your map. You can choose to set a direction for your life, make up a purpose, and work toward achieving this goal, but you can also know full well that in reality it doesn't matter if you achieve your goal or not. Life can have a meaning: Sure, go ahead and play that game, play as if your whole life depends upon it but also with the absolute knowledge that it is just a game.
This upgrade to the base camp doesn't easily take. Many people intellectually agree with the philosophy espoused but can't incorporate the change at the visceral level. The software won't install. They may vocalize the appropriate noises when times are good, "Oh, it doesn't matter if I get the new job! What's important is the quality of life, not the quantity of money I have," but when they get fired from their current job, then the anxieties surface and the complaining begins. When the chips are down, the equanimity evaporates, and the real map is revealed.
(From the Gita to the Grail : exploring yoga stories & western myths,
by Bernie Clark, Blue River press, Indianapolis, copyright © 2014, pp.460-461)
p.461
Man with his understanding cannot know what the rain is
saying when it falls upon the leaves of the trees or when it taps
at the window panes. He cannot know what the breezes is saying
to the flowers in the fields.
But the Heart of Man can feel and grasp the meaning of these
sounds that play upon his feelings. Eternal Wisdom often speaks
to him in a mysterious language; Soul and Nature converse
together while Man stands speechless and bewildered.
-- Kahlil Gibran from The Voice of the Master 6
6 Kahlil Gibran from The Voice of the Master, translated by Anthony R Ferris, (Citadel), 2003, pages 58-59.
(From the Gita to the Grail : exploring yoga stories & western myths,
by Bernie Clark, Blue River press, Indianapolis, copyright © 2014, p.461)
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πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα
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