I have a cousin who in his youth used to tell these long, stupid jokes that ended with punchlines like, "Typical gnu and tiler too," and "Abscess makes the fart go Honda," groaners that were sometimes enjoyable - except for one of his favorites. It began as a tale of a merchant driving his mule - his jackass - across the desert. On and on it went, as the mule groaned with each new encounter: "master, can't we stop now?", to which the master would reply, "have patience, jackass, have patience!" Thus it continued until the listener was supposed to ask (but seldom did, if they were 10 years old) "when the hell is this gonna end?" To which the reply was, "have patience, jackass, have patience!" Thus I advise my friend Cal, who in his recent comment complained that we are getting too much religion and too little of Bigfoot and Marvin Martian lately. Such will come again in their own time, my friend. "Have patience....."
Having proven that the writer gets the last word, I now turn to another friend who has found a new job in the Palouse (sp?) area of eastern Washington state. After a tough three and one half days of driving from southern Ohio, and having left grip marks in her steering wheel over the Idaho Rockies, she arrived in the dark hours of evening and gave me a call. "It's an ugly old apartment in an ugly town with too many hills. I can't take this driving any longer." To this I got a rare moment of insight: "You're tired and worn out. Get a good night's sleep and the world will look a whole lot better."
The next night she called and said "It's beautiful here, so much better than where I was! The university is perfect, and the people are great. You've got to visit!"
Such I have noticed to my consternation: that no matter how practical or in control I believe I am, the universe twists and turns to my feelings, which twists and turns to the weather, sleep, state of stomach acid , or even the weather. Far from sharing an objective view with fellow rationals, I live a subjective life based seemingly on whim and chance - as I suspect others do as well. What is good or bad is as often as not influenced by our internal physical or mental state. What then of objectivity?
It just might be much worse than that. Our entire genome is based on chemical reactions, both those produced by what we take in and by what our genetic code gives out. Reality, as we perceive it, could be nothing more than a design that loosely coincides with a greater reality, enough so that we can survive but no more. It almost seems like the fashionable idea out there now - that we are computer simulations - is true. We are programmed, as far as our physiological type is concerned, and there is no way to entirely escape that, or so it seems. Our reality is subjective, and that subjectivity is largely out of our control.
The eastern religions are particularly aware of this. The often-spoken idea that Hindus and Buddhists believe that "life is but a dream" has been overly simplified and disparaged by the West, but it has many layers, one resting on the nature of our nature itself. However - and this is the difficult part - we can deny this 'chemical' nature to such an extent, as to float above it into a purer reality - and then into another, and so on, until the "void" is reached of pure reality - which would approximate the Christian god (although both are beyond description and so impossible, really, to compare). Thus the idea that life is a dream. And thus, too, the idea in the West that we are hopelessly lost in Original Sin. There is a difference between the two, as the West emphasizes actions while the East emphasizes internal states, but even in the Western religions, it is believed that acts alone do not free one from this mortal "dream" or state of sin. It is, rather, right thinking, which can only be reached by intense discipline and/or the Grace of God. It is, in the end, not our acts, but our perceptions that must be changed. The acts, it is understood, will help perception and perception will help the acts, but it is perception that is key.
And so it is that Jesus consorted with criminals and prostitutes and scoff-laws. Hard as it is to believe, they are very little different from the rest of us. They are cruder in their acts, but their mind-set - the chemical reality of their bodies - is the same. From a Western perspective, we are all similarly trapped in "original" sin; from the Eastern, all similarly trapped in a type of dream. The differences are mere details in the greater truth.
For my part, I would find the Palouse better than southern Ohio - unless I got a bad stomach ache somewhere on the Continental Divide. Even in different environments, my likes and dislikes are largely out of my hands. Maybe not, though - but the way out to clearer skies is, usually, more difficult than a drive through switchback trails. FK
Having proven that the writer gets the last word, I now turn to another friend who has found a new job in the Palouse (sp?) area of eastern Washington state. After a tough three and one half days of driving from southern Ohio, and having left grip marks in her steering wheel over the Idaho Rockies, she arrived in the dark hours of evening and gave me a call. "It's an ugly old apartment in an ugly town with too many hills. I can't take this driving any longer." To this I got a rare moment of insight: "You're tired and worn out. Get a good night's sleep and the world will look a whole lot better."
The next night she called and said "It's beautiful here, so much better than where I was! The university is perfect, and the people are great. You've got to visit!"
Such I have noticed to my consternation: that no matter how practical or in control I believe I am, the universe twists and turns to my feelings, which twists and turns to the weather, sleep, state of stomach acid , or even the weather. Far from sharing an objective view with fellow rationals, I live a subjective life based seemingly on whim and chance - as I suspect others do as well. What is good or bad is as often as not influenced by our internal physical or mental state. What then of objectivity?
It just might be much worse than that. Our entire genome is based on chemical reactions, both those produced by what we take in and by what our genetic code gives out. Reality, as we perceive it, could be nothing more than a design that loosely coincides with a greater reality, enough so that we can survive but no more. It almost seems like the fashionable idea out there now - that we are computer simulations - is true. We are programmed, as far as our physiological type is concerned, and there is no way to entirely escape that, or so it seems. Our reality is subjective, and that subjectivity is largely out of our control.
The eastern religions are particularly aware of this. The often-spoken idea that Hindus and Buddhists believe that "life is but a dream" has been overly simplified and disparaged by the West, but it has many layers, one resting on the nature of our nature itself. However - and this is the difficult part - we can deny this 'chemical' nature to such an extent, as to float above it into a purer reality - and then into another, and so on, until the "void" is reached of pure reality - which would approximate the Christian god (although both are beyond description and so impossible, really, to compare). Thus the idea that life is a dream. And thus, too, the idea in the West that we are hopelessly lost in Original Sin. There is a difference between the two, as the West emphasizes actions while the East emphasizes internal states, but even in the Western religions, it is believed that acts alone do not free one from this mortal "dream" or state of sin. It is, rather, right thinking, which can only be reached by intense discipline and/or the Grace of God. It is, in the end, not our acts, but our perceptions that must be changed. The acts, it is understood, will help perception and perception will help the acts, but it is perception that is key.
And so it is that Jesus consorted with criminals and prostitutes and scoff-laws. Hard as it is to believe, they are very little different from the rest of us. They are cruder in their acts, but their mind-set - the chemical reality of their bodies - is the same. From a Western perspective, we are all similarly trapped in "original" sin; from the Eastern, all similarly trapped in a type of dream. The differences are mere details in the greater truth.
For my part, I would find the Palouse better than southern Ohio - unless I got a bad stomach ache somewhere on the Continental Divide. Even in different environments, my likes and dislikes are largely out of my hands. Maybe not, though - but the way out to clearer skies is, usually, more difficult than a drive through switchback trails. FK
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