The ‘Law’ and its Application
presented in an initial message and
supplemented by two later postscripts
second postscript to The
‘Law’ and its Application as of September 15, 2006
in the original note, there is the clear assertion by
Jesus that the ‘Law’ is a personal guide and that law is a ‘curse’ whose
application is only to guide us on our way to enlightenment (‘faith’), yet in
Christian teaching, though not in Buddhist and aboriginal teachings, the ‘Law’
becomes something generalized that must be complied with by all. But from
whence comes the foundations for a system of general
application of the ‘Law’ and the establishment of an earthly authority
empowered to interpret, impose and enforce the ‘Law’?
in this second postscript, citations from Augustine of
Hippo, selected readings of Augustine translated and introduced by Mary T.
Clark will serve to illustrate foundational thoughts embodied in a ‘his
at the same time, citations from The Myth of the Eternal
Return, a contrasting, alternative way of thinking about ‘organizing the social
dynamic’ will serve to illustrate foundational thoughts embodied in a
‘trans-his
coming from a western ‘upbringing’, it is quite
‘startling’ to see these differences ‘come clear’ in a foundational sense, and
to see the ‘civilized’ and the ‘uncivilized’ (‘primitive’) compared together
with their respective foundational models of organization (‘Law’ and
central-authority driven, ... and, ... continuous renewal induced). For
example, in our western Augustinian view, the decline of the
picture the difference then, in
the primitive cultures where aging and death is seen in the trans-his
beyond this, the practice of the primitives was, and
continues to be (so, ‘primitive’ might be a misleading term here and we could
instead speak about the ‘naturalist’ which is inside of each of us) to eschew
association with their ‘his
these very different
understandings of the world and our relationship to it, come from our notions
of ‘organization’ and how it is achieved, and thus to the concepts of ‘Law’ and
its application and earthly Empires (nation-states) and kings (central
governing authorities).
as in the initial portion of this note, it is easy to
interpret the teachings of Jesus as being in the ‘naturalist’ camp together
with Buddhists and Native North Americans etc., so what is presented here is
really ‘evidence’ that suggests that Christian teaching, which is in many ways
very close to what we call ‘western teaching’ (the continuing Euro-American
cultural entrainment), has split off from the teachings of Jesus, and indeed
many scholars describe Augustine’s works as having a heavy hand in this, ...
but they do not say that Augustine’s teaching conflicts with the teachings of
Jesus, but merely that he introduces the concept of a split ‘Church’ and
‘State’ where we now have the ‘city of God’ and at the same time the ‘city of
man’ and that while the former must sit above the latter, the latter will have
its own organizing and behaviour-‘guiding’ methods.
to be clear, the proposition i
am suggesting in this note and its postscripts is that Augustine’s influential
interpretations CONFLICT with the essentially ‘naturalist’ teachings of Jesus,
a conflict that may have been aided and abetted by difficulties in translating
Jesus words through Greek rather than the original Aramaic, as quite a number
of religious scholars maintain.
the conflict can be encapsulated in the above imagery
wherein (it is herein proposed that) Jesus intended that we are ‘of the
continuing evolutionary flow’ (i.e. the ‘Kingdom of God’ is the evolutionary
flow as with Buddhism and aboriginal belief traditions) but that we have lost our
way and split apart the ‘male’ (material-causal his
this shift in understanding exactly parallels to the
shift in science (not yet assimilated into our culture) from the
object-paradigm of Newton to the (energy-field-) flow-paradigm of relativity
and quantum wave dynamics; i.e. what we formerly understood to be ‘objects’
that existed in their own independent right and enjoyed a temporal sequential
his
it is clear that Augustine
‘leaves out’ the participative role of space in the dynamics of man as did
Plato in his Republic and apparently,
‘And when you make the inner as the outer,
and the outer as the inner, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male
and female into a single one so that the male shall not be male and the female
(shall not) be female, then shall you enter (the Kingdom).” --- Jesus
(per the Gospel of Thomas)
to understand Augustine’s argument as the nature of ‘the
State’ and to the concepts of ‘justice’ and ‘Law’ bound up in it, ...it is
useful to peruse his Chapter 21 in ‘City of God’, which follows in its
entirety;
“This now, is the place where I
should explain as briefly and clearly as possible what I promised in the second
book of this work, that if we were to accept the definitions used by Scipio in
So when there is no true justice
there can be no gathering of men united in fellowship by a common sense of
right and, therefore, no people as defined by Scipio or Cicero; and if no
people, then no commonwealth, but only some kind of mob unworthy to be called a
people. Consequently, if a state is a commonwealth, and if that is not a
people, that is, not united in fellowship by a common sense of right, and if
there is no right where there no justice, then it certainly follows that where
there is no justice there is no state. Furthermore, justice is that
virtue which distributes to everyone his due. What justice, then, is that which removes a man from the true God and
subjects him to unclean demons? Is this to give everyone his due?
Or is he who retains a piece of land from the purchaser and gives it to someone
who has no right to it unjust, whereas he who takes himself from the Lord God
who made him and serves wicked spirits in just?
Certainly this same book, De Republica, argues very sharply and vigorously against
injustice and in favor of justice. And since
when it was previously argued on behalf of injustice against justice,
maintaining that a state cannot exist or be administered except through
injustice, it was put forward as the most valid position that it is unjust for
some men to serve other men as masters, and yet an imperial city including a
mighty state cannot govern provinces without pursuing such injustice: the
answer to this argument on the part of justice was that the rule over
provincials is just, because servitude is useful to such men and is established
for their welfare when rightly established, that is, when license to do wrong
is withdrawn from wicked men, and that those subjected will be better off
because, when not subjected, they were worse off.
To confirm this reasoning a
remarkable example is given, as though from nature and expressed this way:
“Why, therefore, does God command man, the soul command the body, the reason
command the passions and the other vicious parts of the soul?” This
example teaches clearly enought that servitude is
useful to some men and service to God is useful to all.
For in serving God the soul
rightly commands the body, and within that very soul the reason subject to God
the Lord rightly commands the passions and the other vices. Therefore,
when a man does not serve God, how much justice can we suppose him to
possess? For when a man does not serve God, in no way can his soul justly
command his body or his human reason command his vices. And if there is
no justice in such a man, without doubt there is no justice in a community of
such men. Here, then there is no common sense of right which transforms a
multitude of men into a people, whose wealth has been said to be a
commonwealth. For why need I speak of the utility whereby also a
gathering of men, according to our definition, is called a people?
Although, if you carefully note, there is no utility to those who live
impiously as do all who do not serve God and serve demons --- demons all the
more impious in demanding that sacrifices be paid to them as to Gods --- yet I
think that all we have said concerning a common sense of right sufficiently
demonstrates that in terms of this definition a people in whom there is no
justice cannot be said to be a state. For if it is said that the Romans
in their state served not unclean spirits but good and holy gods, must we
repeat what we have already said enough times, nay, more than enough? For
can he who has read the previous books of this work and has reached this point
doubt that the Romans served evil and impure demons unless he is either
exceedingly stupid or shamelessly contentious? But aside from the
character of the gods to whom they offered sacrifices, it is written in the Law
of the true God: “He who sacrifices to any God except to the Lord only shall be
utterly destroyed” (Ex. 22:20). He who prescribed such a threatening
commandment did not will, therefore, that sacrifices be offered either to good
gods or to evil ones.“
* * *
it’s
worthwhile here, to include the comments of the translator of his overall
works, Mary Clark, to put this chapter into context of Augustine’s overall
thinking in regard to the ‘Law’;
“Augustine’s famous charge that
there never was a
The thrust of Book XIX is not
political but eschatological. Everyone seeks happiness and all seek it in
some good that they choose. There is no evil reality in itself but only a
good proudly preferred to God. Political power is not an evil, only
inordinate love of power. The vestige of God in every good thing calls on
us to transcend it and allow the infinite longing of the human heart to find
its true happiness in the Infinite God. Unless love for God has priority
in our lives the realities we seek --- wealth, power, honor,
pleasure --- become idols. As false gods they cannot give peace to
persons who are “made toward” God. All peoples seek happiness, and complete happiness is to be found only in the
supreme good, which is eternal life. “where God
shall be all in all, where eternity shall be firm, and peace most perfect and
absolute. (XIX.20)
This happiness is visible only
to the eyes of faith and is to be received from God for the asking.”
* * *
one can recognize in these citations from and about
Augustine’s thoughts/writing in regard to ‘the state’, a basic shortfall in the
modeling paradigm that parallels that picked up on by Poincaré
in the case of mathematics where there is an advance prejudice as to the
existence of ‘objects’ which figure in all the theorems and proofs etc. of
mathematical physics, but which are themselves accepted without any
elaboration, and which would be of no use in a purely spatial-relational
(fluid-dynamical) world where we would have to speak, instead, in terms of ‘dynamical
forms of organization’ (spatial-relationships that are transforming in the
continuing present)
that is, the existence of ‘States’ is an a priori
prejudice and Augustine’s discussion focuses on ‘what is not a state’ and then
what states can do and cannot do etc.
the existence of the ‘state’ is
fundamental to the ‘his
for example, we could make a his
the ‘missing dimension’ is the
common RELATIVE space, a dynamical space that wraps around the globe in all
directions and back into itself from all directions. we ‘unfolded’ these
his
there is a way to combine all the his
if we stick with the holodynamical
view (which is why natives cultivate understanding in sharing circles rather
than by debating ‘what is the single real his
in other words, the ‘justice’ of giving every man his due
is what ‘makes a state’, and giving every man his due means that his pursuit of
wealth etc. rather than being an end-in-itself, is given a higher meaning in
his love of God.
so, without God (outside of nature and above it) to give
higher meaning to a ‘state’, the ‘state’ cannot exist since its material goals
as ends in themselves are ‘false icons’. the natives and buddhists, meanwhile, see Nature as all there is, as in the
holodynamical evolutionary flow view where ‘states’
are no more than interdependent dynamical forms of organization.
so Augustine brings to us the notion of multiple states
that are true states if the people in them believe that God takes precedence
over their material pursuits, but it is all a circular argument and the only
grounding that the ‘state’ is given in Augustine’s argument is ‘what it is
not’.
and here we go with the same
backward-implying meaning-giving for the oxymoronic (of one believes the
teachings of Jesus) ‘just war’ by way of reference to a war that would not be
just.
“Now to war against one’s
neighbour’s, and to proceed to the harm of those who do not harm you, for
greedy desire of rule and sovereignty, what is this but flat thievery in a
greater excess and quantity than usual?”
throughout Augustine’s argument, then, there is this
dependence on a God outside of nature for a ‘state’ to exist, and for the
state’s acceptance of that God as the supreme authority, for ‘war’ to be
‘just’; i.e. for God to be on the side of the nation that is waging war on
another, the paternalist reason for doing so being given in the above citation,
and repeated here for convenience;
“it was put forward as the most
valid position that it is unjust for some men to serve other men as masters,
and yet an imperial city including a mighty state cannot govern provinces
without pursuing such injustice: the answer to this argument on the part of
justice was that the rule over provincials is just, because servitude is useful
to such men and is established for their welfare when rightly established, that
is, when license to do wrong is withdrawn from wicked men, and that those
subjected will be better off because, when not subjected, they were worse off.”
the whole Augustinian argument leaves unexamined and
unsupported, the advance prejudice of ‘states’ as independent objects that
possess linear temporal existences, and thus, the ‘his
once we have ‘the state’, we
have the paternalist central governing authority with a God-beyond-nature’s
guiding hand on its shoulder and a justification for war (as a paternalist duty
to ‘withdraw from wicked men the license to do wrong’).
just as the legitimacy of the object paradigm is left
unexamined and unsupported in mathematical physics, as Poincaré
brought out, with the result that spatial-relational paradigm (relativity) is
occluded and not considered, so it is again in this case where the legitimacy
of the nation-state paradigm is left unexamined and unsupported in Augustine’s
city of god (he examines only when a state is not a state, but does not
question that states can exist as independent objects with a temporal
sequential ‘life-time’).
* * *
that pretty much covers the essentials of Augustine’s modeling
of the ‘state’, the ‘Law’, how ‘war’ can be ‘just’ and how all of that relates
to God, the key point being that his whole argument is built upon a ‘his
moving on to the alternative understanding of the
‘primitives’, or ‘naturalists’ who associate themselves with the ongoing
evolutionary flow and regard their material bodies merely as dynamical forms of
organization with the flow, the image of the self is somewhat more optimistic
in that one understands himself as being included in the ongoing metamorphosis
(the evolutionary dynamic) so that one’s death is innately supportive of
ongoing life. so, ‘aging’, rather than being ‘rot’, is understood as
participation in the metamorphosis of the dynamical hostspace
that one is included in, so that one’s self is of the timeless transhis
in the following quotes from Mircea Eliade’s The Myth of
the Eternal Return, ... which has been a common theme of ‘naturalist’ cultures
not only in the eastern mediterranean but around the
world, the world is seen as continuous dynamically unifying ‘All’ and this
unifying is by way of cycles of renewal. thus, in the belief traditions
of these ‘naturalist’ cultures or ‘primitives’, what is put into precedence is
keeping oneself OUT OF THE HISTORICAL view and instead associating ONE’s SELF with the continuously renewing flow of
nature. Eliade points out how profound, to the
‘naturalist’ cultures, is the renewal implied by the moon-cycle with is three
days nothingness that mark a new beginning, and also how rituals like
celebrating the Sabbath and ‘confessing the errors of one’s way’ are ways of
orienting to the notion of renewal, new cycles of beginnings that originate
within the mother-space in which we are included (i.e. we are continually being
given renewal by the living natural universe we are included in). in this
view our experience is trans-his
so, when reading the citations from Eliade,
and trying to put oneself in the frame of understanding of the naturalist
cultures (which is accessible to each of us, since we are equipped to be born
into a naturalist trans-his
Eliade comments;
“What
is of chief importance to us in these archaic systems [native and other ritual that puts
things in the context of cyclic renewal as in ‘preserving the sabbath’ or confessing one’s sins] is
the abolition of concrete time, and hence their antihis
so,
the disappointments we have experienced in our lives can comes from our ‘fall’
into ‘his
as
Eliade points out, the troubles the Romans were
having (the myth of romulus and remus
also predicted a finite duration for Rome, the arrival of a death day) were
interpreted as the approach of the death of Rome, when the troubles were
instead signalling the evolutionary dynamic itself, the continuing renewal, and
it was only the death fixation of his
the
Romans’ culture avoidance of accepting that the Roman Empire was inductively
actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace or
‘world dynamic’ that they were included in, ... and instead thinking of
themselves and ‘it’ in terms of ‘his
.
but that form is instead,
inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace-flow
it is included in (which is entirely missing from the picture)....
that
is, it is consistent with our experience to understand dynamical entities with
an individual nature such as ‘man’ in terms of their having been inductively
actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace they
are included in, rather than tracking ourselves backwards in time, in his
which
brings us back to ‘organization’ and the western his
in such a deliberate, rational (unnatural, abstract) scheme of
organization, there is no place for the role of the dynamical hostspace we are included in, in inductively actualizing
and shaping our behaviour.
but yet, when people are on the beach and the tide goes out, or
the tsunami pulls all the water out, the crowd goes out to have a look. moreso than organization driven deliberately from out the
internals of independent object-peoplle, this is
spatial-relational induced organization, ... and when the tide comes back in,
the crowd is orchestrated, by the transforming of the dynamical hostspace it is included in, to retreat, and if they are
not in phase, as when the tsunami comes back in or when one strays too far on
the sands of Mont Saint-Michel where the tides are 40 feet and the ebb exposes
sands for miles out, and they don’t retreat fast enough, then dissonance or
‘out-of-phaseness’ results within this pulse of
space-induced organization. but there is
no way to describe this wavy, ‘continual-return’ kind of organization in the
sense of his
the
trouble in our current era is, that’s all the television news ever tries to do
is to start with the untested and unstated assumption
that there is ‘a his
primitive
man (and the naturalist man that is in each of us) was not ‘denying reality’ by
trying to get out of that sense of his
our
theme, The ‘Law’ and its Application, is clearly bound up in these
questions of how we understand ‘organization’ and whether it is ‘deliberate’
and driven by the internal power and direction of independent objects (as in
the ‘his
so, what happens to our ‘assertive accomplishments’ when we are
in a trans-his
well
the first thing is, we no longer think in terms of independent power-boat like
individuals, so the idea of ‘individual’ accomplishment goes right out the
window, but not the idea of ‘individual engagement’ with the community hostspace dynamic, ... the thing that is sucking all the
professors and students and mortar and bricks around into the dynamical form we
call ‘university’ and continues to do so over multiple life-cycle generations
of teachers and students and mortar and bricks.
in
the trans-his
there
is some place that the wind is asking us to go, not an explicit place but some
place that will be determined by the manner in which we move to discover it
since the winds of change that invite us to visit it transform in our taking up
the invitation (i.e. as we move in the service of seeking to sustain harmony in
the space we are included in). and we are
naturally sensitive to this ‘call of the winds of change’. now the
powerboat people (people who have ‘fallen’ into his
the
fear of failing to achieve our goals (as comes with thinking in ‘his
when
riding on a motorcycle in Texas and New Mexico i was
always attuned to the winds and the skies and adjusted my helm so as to bypass
thunderstorms, but those in the security of their de-sensitizing metallic
condoms aka ‘cars and trucks’ were too destination
oriented for that, and i often came hailstones on the
road and cars/trucks in the ditch that marked their lack of attunement
that was born of their self-assumed powerboat-based invincibility, ... Invicta Roma Aeterna, ... Invicta Me Aeterna, that property
of objects (and seeing ourselves as objects) which as Parmenides (a 500 B.C.
proponent of the ‘his
the
news media is constantly trying to put us into ‘his
the
powerboat people (we, when in that mode) are currently (post 9/11) convincing
one another of the ‘death of an era’, the death throes of which are an ‘age of
terror’, ... in the same manner as the Romans did to themselves and of course,
we, the descendents of the Roman Empire continue to believe that ‘Rome did
die’, that this was a profound his
if
we accept the greater reality of the brotherhood of man which is necessarily in
trans-his
the Augustinian view is a ‘his
the ‘naturalist’ view is a ‘trans-his
it seems clear to me, that this second ‘naturalist’ manner of
understanding the world and our relationship with (within) it, is what is
alluded to in the teachings of Jesus that we have ‘fallen’ out of, embracing
instead the one-sided male, paternalist deliberate control based his
how do we get out of entrapment in this hollow his
‘And when you make the inner as the outer,
and the outer as the inner, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male
and female into a single one so that the male shall not be male and the female
(shall not) be female, then shall you enter (the Kingdom).” --- Jesus
(per the Gospel of Thomas)
as in the translations from the original Aramaic, ‘the kingdom’
is both within us and without us; i.e. it corresponds to the divine unity of
nature, the ‘evolving space of the continuing present’.
we no longer need ‘Law’ when we re-enter the kingdom, the ‘tao’ or the ‘evolutionary flow’;
“Wherefore
the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under
a schoolmaster.”
since the behaviour asked of us is unique and personal according
to our situational inclusion within the flow, and we are made aware of it by
sustaining inner-outer dynamical balance and harmony with the dynamical hostspace in which we are included.
this getting in touch with ourselves as androgynous
dynamical unifying of opposites is what the primitive spiritual tradition and
the ‘Buddha Dharma’ (the ‘Law’ or ‘Truth’ of the way of the Buddha) is all
about;
anyhow,
this note is not about preaching religion, it is about presenting some things
we have put into the foundations of how we understand the world and our
relationship with it, that have been ‘buried’ and ‘obscured’ from our view by
generations of accepting practice within our culture.
our embrace of deliberately imposed social order has been
reaching new highs over the past century. it
amounts to an attempt to ‘stop evolution’ and to take over the helm and to
manage evolution deliberately from here on in.
this
attempt is fuelled by generations of convincing ourselves that we are truly at
the helm of our own powerboat behaviour and that our assertive accomplishments
are truly ‘our own’, a view that occludes the mother role (through inductive
actualization and shaping of behaviour) of the dynamical hostspace
we are all included in.
we are dismayed that our ‘empire’ is crumbling and that rot and
putrefaction leading to its death is well underway.
that
alternative view of the ‘naturalist’ in us, embodied in the teachings of Jesus
and the Buddha and in the 10,000 year old tradition of the north american natives, is that we are all a brotherhood of One
which continues on just as the evolutionary flow continues on since it is the
evolutionary flow, and that we should chill out and accept our participation in
a spatial metamorphosis, using the sustaining of inner-outer harmony as the orchestrative actualizing and shaping our behaviour, both
as individuals and as local brotherhood known as ‘people-nations’.
the abstract notion of ‘the State’ with its ‘Law’ that is used to
deliberately impose peace, is a recipe that is having us go to war against our
own spiritual mother, the ‘tao’ or evolutionary flow.
*
* * end of second postscript * * *
.
postscript
to ‘The ‘Law’ and its Application’ as of September 12, 2006
This
postscript is to cite a current example of ‘Christian Teaching’ which, to me,
illustrates very well how Christian teaching departs from the teachings of
Jesus and actually provides, unintentionally, a his
The central
issue is ‘Law’ and whether ‘Law’ is to be conceived of as implicit, something
to provide personal guidance, since we are all included in our common hostspace dynamic in a uniquely situated way, or whether
‘Law’ is to be conceived of as explicit and general so as to be applied by any
person to other persons (equipping each of us to be ‘a Judge’ and an
‘Executioner’).
How we
perceive ‘Law’ not only effects our social dynamical ‘management’ but also our
‘scientific’ manner of reasoning since ‘Law’ comes into play equally in our
reasoned inquiry and the same questions as to the nature and application of
‘Law’ arise in the context of reasoned inquiry.
The article
‘Theology for an Age of Terror’ speaks in terms of a time during which the
Roman Empire was ‘crumbling’ and the uncertainty and ‘terror’ which reigned at
that time associated with the collapse of an unnatural imposing of ‘Law’ on a
diversity of people in an extensive region (‘Empire’) in which Rome occupied
the center as a ‘Central Governing Authority’. Clearly the ‘Law’ was
applied in an explicit and general manner wherein an individual conversant with
the law was equipped to be both a ‘Judge’ and ‘Executioner’ and the
distribution of authority to local communities to interpret and administer the
law in local nations (regional peoples) and communities provided the basis for
the Imperial social dynamics management.
What comes
across in this current article of Christian teaching is the very issue of how
does one reconcile the teachings of Jesus with the need for res
For the first time,
Christians had to think about what it means to follow Jesus Christ while also
participating in civil governance. What does it mean to wage a just war? Can
followers of a Palestinian peasant who declined to call armies of angels to
deliver him from physical assault now sanction violence against heretics and
recalcitrant pagans in his name?
It is not
hard to see, when one reflects on it, that there are certain, shall we say
‘supremacist’, assumptions in the authors perspective that recall the Papal
Bull Inter-Caetera of 1493 which gave Christian
explorers dispensation to kill the savage pagans in the Americans and seize
their lands, if they could not be converted to Christianity.
To be sure,
this ‘supremacism’ is a western cultural
characteristic and it has only been in my lifetime that the acceptance of
‘Empire’ has become somewhat ‘politically incorrect’ (e.g. the last ‘British
Empire Games’ was in
How we look
at ‘history’ is very much tied up in this question of reconciling Christian
teaching with the teachings of Jesus and our conception of ‘Law’.
And the interpretation of history is very much in open contention
as the furore over the remarks of UK Conservative Party David Cameron’s a mere
two weeks ago have raised; i.e.
“The Tory
leader, who met Mandela in
But his intervention drew
sharp criticism from some of the ex-Prime Minister's closest allies. Her former
spokesman, Sir Bernard Ingham, said: 'I wonder
whether David Cameron is a Conservative.'
Describing Mandela as
'one of the greatest men alive', Cameron writes: 'The mistakes my party made in
the past with respect to relations with the ANC and sanctions on South Africa
make it all the more important to listen now.
'The fact that there is
so much to celebrate in the new South Africa is not in spite of Mandela and the
ANC, it is because of them - and we Conservatives should say so clearly today.'
http://free.financialmail.co.za/06/0901/bookfront/ednote.htm
It is no
coincidence that the current world is still split by those who would turn a
blind eye to ‘State terrorism’ but who are quick to label those who resist
State terrorism ‘terrorists’ and those who believe that the question is instead
how to sustain peace and harmony.
In the
presence of conflict that is leaving a wake of death and destruction, the res
So, while
all of the instances of the proud phraseology ‘The British Empire’, the symbols
of belief in maintaining centralized paternalist control by those who are ‘most
evolved’ to ‘keep the peace’, have been ‘taken down’, they have not exactly
been burned or thrown away.
Returning
to the Roman Empire era and Augustine’s philosophical contribution to Church
doctrine and the role of ‘history’ therein, we find the current author (Timothy
George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford
University and an Executive Editor of Christianity Today) equating the
‘crumbling of the Roman Empire’ with an ‘age of terror’ where the nature of the
violence changed (others were beating up on the Romans rather than the Romans
beating up on others) and the realization was coming through that Rome; “Invicta Roma Aeterna: eternal, unconquerable Rome ... "The city to which
the whole world fell has fallen. If
The author
falls into the trap of interpreting history through a particular pair of eyes,
those of the people who were losing the security and prosperity that they had
enjoyed. But not everybody in the world was in freefall,
others were rapidly improving their condition. Natural evolution
always prevails and Nature doesn’t crumble and die, collapse and and death is just one of view of the evolutionary dynamic
that characterizes Nature, a view that comes to us if we ‘hold on’ to the
perspective of a particular strain. But as Antoine Béchamp
observed ‘Nothing is the prey of death, everything is the prey of life’ (i.e.
new life consumes older life but ‘life’ is the ‘operative agent’, not ‘death’.
‘Death’ is an abstraction imposed by the observer by focusing on a
particular history since there is nothing of the ‘dying organism’ that is lost
or goes missing, all included in the new dynamical forms of organization that
we refer to as ‘life-forms’).
Thus, the
‘death of the
The ‘Law’
was available to the Barbarians and Vandals as well as to the Romans. The
‘Law’ was available to all from the time of Hammurabi
(18xx – 1750 B.C.) and his ‘Code’, the last three of the 282 items of which
follow, which show their inbuilt dependency on ‘who is in control’;
280. If while in a foreign
country a man buy a male or female slave belonging to another of his own
country; if when he return home the owner of the male or female slave
recognize it: if the male or female slave be a native of the country, he
shall give them back without any money. 281. If they are from
another country, the buyer shall declare the amount of money paid therefor to the merchant, and keep the male or female
slave. 282. If a
slave say to his master: If If a slave say to his
master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master
shall cut off his ear. Laws of justice which Hammurabi,
the wise king, established. A righteous law, and pious statute did he teach
the land. Hammurabi, the protecting king am I. |
So, whose
law are we talking about? Law is something that is imposed by a
central controlling authority, but there can be many central controlling
authorities, and thus the Laws of the Vandals, decree that certain things shall
be done which are in conflict with that which the Laws of the Romans
decree. How then is Law anything other
than a personal guide since its administration requires a central authority,
and there is no way to establish, other than by war, who the ultimate local
authority shall be. If God is the ultimate central authority, he is
not speaking up and settling arguments as to which of two disputing central
authorities deserves precedence.
Which law
shall I go with if I am a barbarian living within what
Wherefore
the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under
a schoolmaster.”
In this
regard, we have this problem that multiple different self-appointed (and even
democratically elected majorities have no monopoly on the truth; e.g. North
American natives can argue very ably that ‘Canada’ and ‘the United States’ have
no other grounds for their ‘central-authority-ship’ than the manner in which
Europeans fought over how to divide up what they had stolen) ‘central control
authorities’ claim that their law takes precedent over the law of the other.
The ‘Law’
may be a fine thing, but it needs a central control authority for its
administration and there’s the rub, ... which central
control authority shall prevail. God’s not talking.
BUT, Jesus
says that the ‘Law’ is only a personal guideline anyhow, to help us through the
period wherein we are seeking enlightenment (‘faith’) but are not yet there.
Furthermore,
he says that there is no ‘ultimately correct ‘Law’’ of the many that are
proclaimed, imposed, administered by the various different groups that claim
that the ‘real’ central control authority’ falls in their capital city, since
these national distinctions are not real distinctions;
“In
Him the distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and
female, disappear; ye are all one in Jesus Christ.”
Now, the
author of the ‘Theology for an Age of Terror’ article is a ‘westerner’
with a ‘western point of view’. He is not interpreting history as a
descendent of a Vandal might. He is not interpreting history as an Arab
might since the power of Arab society rose in the wake of Rome’s collapse (the
fall of Rome is approximately put at 465 A.D.) and the Arab Empire took control
over many of the lands that had been important sustainers of the Roman Empire.
The ‘Cliff’s Notes’ précis might be something like; ‘Those kept poor and
backward by occupying Imperial armies finally got so fed up that they were will
to die to break the yoke of imperial enslavement and so, even simple peasant
folk became courageous (suicidal even) warriors that the imperial armies,
softened by their own success (decades of peace), were overcome by them.
The people who were held in contempt for being backward, primitive,
savage thus rose to power which was further fuelled by the wealth and growth
that came with it;
The
Arab Empire Of The Umayyads
Muhammad's victory over the Umayyads, his
capture of
Having united most of
Unaccustomed wealth and political power, which was reflected in the growth of
new cities around Arab garrisons and the expansion of older urban centers, were
the Arabs' rewards for these startling vic
After
a pause to settle internal disputes over succession [the Sunni –Shi’a Division], the remarkable sequence of Arab conquest
was renewed in the last half of the 7th century. Muslim armies broke into
central
There
is a general point to be made here. The ‘Age of Terror’ mentioned
in the September, 2006 ‘Theology for an Age of Terror’ article in Christianity
Today, is only an ‘Age of Terror’ from a western viewpoint, ... the
simultaneous flip-side view, rather than being a ‘loss of security’ was one of
‘rising freedom and empowerment’ since the Roman Empire had thrived by keeping
its vast realm under the thumb of the central controlling authority in Rome.
Just as the ‘age of terror’ as the South African apartheid-imposing
political regime was collapsing, in spite of support from Thatcher and her
‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ wearing fellow conservatives, had its flip side in the
rising liberation and empowerment of those enslaved by the ‘State Terrorism’ of
the prevailing central controlling authority.
Here
is a picture of ‘evolution’ where new life is subsuming earlier life.
Only one particular side of the story is ‘collapse and death’,
‘uncertainty and terror’.
Why
not the ‘evolutionary understanding’ instead of a particular perspective, that
of those who have enjoyed a period of security and prosperity that comes from
being members of the political group from which the ‘central controlling
authority’ is constituted?
But
that is not the way it works within our western culture. The
viewpoint we see in Christianity Today is the same viewpoint we see in the
media, a form of communication that has itself become highly centrally controlled
and which, like the author of the ‘Theology in an Age of Terror’ article,
assumes that there is ‘one true reality’, and that ‘true reality’ is one in
which he sees history in such terms as ‘the collapse of the Roman Empire’
rather than the subsumation of a particular dynamical
form of organization by other dynamical forms of organization. That is,
even in the case of the empire of the human body, there is a continuing
vitality of the participating dynamical forms of organization (alcohol producing
enzymes etc.) that had until lately vitalized the now-inert corpse or
carcass. Nature includes everything; nature excludes nothing.
If we were participants in the Roman Empire, the ‘Age of Terror’ we would have
experienced would be from the point of view of one who has supported the
central control based management of social dynamics which has sustained
security and prosperity for some time and is now threatened with collapse.
Of course, if we were Barbarians or Vandals or Arabs, it wouldn’t have
been an Age of Terror at all, that is just the perspective of those who are
‘going down’ while others are ‘coming up’.
To
every Age of Terror where the security of a central control authority which was
for so long invincible begins to show chinks in its armour; Invicta Roma Aeterna: eternal,
unconquerable Rome, or Invicta Londra Aeterna: eternal,
unconquerable London or Invicta New York Aeterna: eternal, unconquerable New York (financial
control center), ... the ‘terror’ is on the part of those who have been supporters
of the central control based system.
Here,
it must be recognized that not all cultures seek to manage their social
dynamics by way of explicit, generalized ‘Law’ imposed and administered by
‘central control authorities’. The Native American philosophical
tradition did not approach its management of social dynamics by way of central
control authority based administration of ‘Law’.
The
Native tradition, like Buddhism was pantheist (a-theist) and rather than
visualizing God as a central control authority, recognized instead the divinity
of Nature that we are included in; i.e. the ‘Great Mystery’ or ‘the ongoing
Creation’ aka ‘Creator’ that is immanent in the
living, flowing space we are all included in and which is a divine unity as in
a ‘coniuntio oppositorum’
(union of opposites);
"The
Medicine Wheel is the shape of the Zero. The Zero is the symbol and fact of
Creation. The Zero Chiefs say that the Zero is not nothing,
but is instead Everything. . . . Creation, the Zero, is perfectly balanced. The
Zero is Female (WahKahn) and Male (SsKwan), and has designed and birthed all of life."
This
parallels non mainstream interpretations of the teachings of Jesus as Mircea Eliade notes in ‘The Two
and the One’ (Mephistopheles et l’Androgyne)
such as the Gospel of Philip;
“According to the Gospel of Philip (codex C of Khenoboskian)
the division of the sexes --- the creation of Eve taken from the body of Adam
--- was the principle of death. “Christ came to establish what was thus
(divided) in the beginning and to reunite the two. Those who died because they
were in separation he will restore to life by reuniting them!”.
Only
a Roman (westerner) has the constrained, self-interested perspective of seeing
things in terms of the ‘death’ of the
Those
embracing the alternative interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, recognize
that ‘death’ is an abstraction born of our nostalgia for a persisting dynamical
form of organization which has outwelled into the
common dynamical hostspace we share inclusion in,
when it inwells or is subsumed by new dynamical forms
of organization. There is no ‘death-finality’ in the evolutionary dynamic
of Nature there is only continuing life as new dynamical forms subsume prior
dynamical forms with anything being lost, with everything continuing to be
included as in Nature’s way.
As the author of ‘Theology in
an Age of Terror’ notes, Augustine’s way to resolve ‘creation’ was by way of
his conception of ‘history’ --- “The City of God, an opus magnum et arduum,
as [Augustine] called it—a "great and laborious work." it has been
the bedrock of a Christian philosophy of history.” and, as he also says, it provided a way
of dealing with the question that arose as ‘
Instead
of acknowledging, as the non-mainstream interpreters of the teachings of Jesus
did, that there was a problem of perspective with this notion of ‘death’ (the
death of the Roman Empire) Augustine’s solution was to accept this notion of
death as a ‘profound discontinuity’, to make it the ‘stake in the ground’ and
to deal with it by thinking of ourselves as ‘resident aliens, in a world of
profound discontinuity’. In this manner we could keep our constrained
self-interested perspective that brings to the notion of an ‘Age of Terror’ and
the ‘death’ of an Empire (getting all dramatic about our vested interest within
a continuously evolving hostspace dynamic).
“Augustine reminded
his hearers that the City of
Christians hold a
double citizenship in this world. Like the apostle Paul—who could claim that
his true political identity was in heaven (Phil. 3:20), but who also
appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen when his life was at stake—so believers
in Christ live as sojourners, resident aliens, in a world of profound discontinuity
and frequently contested loyalty.”
There
are no ‘profound discontinuities’ in the natural world we live in,... there is only spatial-relational transformation.
That is all that energy-field-flow dynamics allow (relativity, quantum
wave dynamics). The objectification of ‘things’ is our objectification
that we impose on our mental models of the world that is not imposed on Nature.
The native belief is that we as individuals are subsumed within the
evolving space of the continuing now which does not deny our individuality any
more than it would deny the individuality of a hurricane, or any other
dynamical form of organization within the hostspace
flow-dynamic.
How
does this ‘unification of the sexes’ come into play?
... as in the Gospel of Philip;
. “Christ came to establish what was thus (divided) in the
beginning and to reunite the two. Those who died because they were in
separation he will restore to life by reuniting them!”
and again in the Gospel of Thomas;
“And when you make the inner as the outer, and
the outer as the inner, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and
female into a single one so that the male shall not be male and the female
(shall not) be female, then shall you enter (the Kingdom).”
and again in the Second Epistle of
Clement;
“When asked at what moment the Kingdom would
come, the Lord himself replied; “When the two shall be one, the outside
like the inside, the male with the female neither male nor female.
As has been discussed in the body of the note on ‘The ‘Law’
and its Application’, the notion of ‘bringing the two sexes together’ (union of
opposites) can be easily seen in systems inquiry wherein any ‘object’ can be
dually interpreted as the outwelling of assertive
behavioural potentials in ‘coniunctio oppositorum’ with the accommodating backpressure of the
dynamical hostspace these potentials are included in.
Our dual understanding of a ‘university’ was given as an example.
Before we actually give a name to ‘the university’ and thereby ‘declare
its objecthood or ‘existence’’ (as John Stuart Mill
observed, this is an intellectual act whereby we impose the notion of
object-existence on some persisting form), within the community hostspace dynamic, a behavioral
pattern or form is inductively actualized and shaped by the community hostspace dynamic in which it is included. Once we
analyze it analytically (in an ‘in-and-back-out-again’ manner of inquiry),we
come up with its constituent parts (departments, faculties, teachers, students,
buildings, support staff) and ‘what they do’ and how this is all brought
together by a ‘control center’ (chancellor, president, board of governors), ...
so that it appears as if we can understand a ‘university’ strictly in
terms of its parts and what it does. But what is more foundational
to our understanding of a ‘university’ is the ‘out-and-back-in-again’ ‘synthetical’ inquiry that exposes how the MALE assertive
potentials that are being actualized and shaped within the FEMALE accommodative
backpressure (receptive/resistive) of the community hostspace
dynamic. Only when we understand things, INCLUDING OURSELVES in this
‘union of opposites’ manner will we have a spiritual understanding of the world
and ourselves; i.e. only when we understand things in this manner will we be
including ourselves in this divine evolutionary flow-space that is otherwise
known as ‘the Kingdom’.
That is, our western tradition is to understand things,
including ourselves, in purely masculine assertive terms, as independent
objects that exist in the manner of the analytical view of the university where
everything we need can be found inside of us, including the inner purpose that
drives and directs our behaviour. Such a view does not require our
inclusion in a dynamical hostspace flow that
inductively actualizes and shapes our behaivour; i.e.
where the sexes are in union.
As the buddhists say, we must let
go of the rigidity with which our eyes look out ot
the world and objectify everything and judge the behaviour of the objects out
there as if the were independently driven from their insides, since this is
what holds us back from experiencing our inclusion in the evolving space of the
continuing present. Instead, we have to relax our crow’s eye judging and
let the space out there come in through us and take us up within it.
Insight opens
your mind. An open mind leads to an open heart. Openheartedness
leads to justice. Divinity is oneness with Tao. Oneness with Tao is
freedom from harm, indescribable pleasure, eternal
life.
-Tao Te Ching
As Mircea
Eliade notes, this theme where let go of the single
masculine perspective in terms of independent objects (i.e. ‘independent’ and
thus needing to be managed by a ‘paternalist central controlling authority) is
a pervasive them for divinity in ancient cultures;
I am
like a pitcher of clay floating in the water, water inside, water outrside. Now suddenly with a touch of the guru the
pitcher is broken. Inside, outside, O Friends, all one.
-Kabir
How do we set out to lose the singular
perspective that leads to ‘profound discontinuity’ as in ‘death’ and the ‘death
of the Empire’? How do we look out simultaneously through the eyes of the
Barbarians, the Vandals and the Romans? How do we look out through
multiple different perspectives at the same time so that instead of thinking in
terms of the ‘collapse of the
The native approach is through ‘sharing circles’ where
everyone is invited to share their heartfelt view and be respectfully heard,
without any assumption as to ‘the existence of a ‘best’ view of reality’.
When people are so informed, they then let their own behaivour
be guided by their understanding of multiple simultaneous behaviours, rather
than keying their behaviour to a single ‘best’ view of reality. In our
western understanding of history, however, we seek a ‘best single reality’ such
as ‘the decline and fall of the
On the right is the native ‘sharing circle’ approach where
there is no pursuit of a single reality, but rather an attempt to assimilate awarenesss of multiple simultaneous realities (the Romans
are going down, the Barbarians, Vandals and Arabs are rising up) that allow the
observer to understand in the manner of entering into the evolutionary
flow. The technique actually recapitulates holography where the imagery
is spatial-relational and not dependent on ‘objects’ and ‘what they do’; i.e. one
brings a diverse multitude of experiences into coherent connective confluence.
So, this postscript seeks to shed some light on the source
of the ‘alleged’ gap between Christian teaching and the teachings of Jesus
(union of opposites), and how this is being perpetuated in today’s society
(e.g. the media with their quest of developing the best single view of
reality).
If the reader can see how ‘the death of the Roman Empire’ is
a view of history in terms of ‘profound discontinuity’ that is false because it
represents a particular perspective that doesn’t capture our experience of
being included in an evolutionary dynamic, then the core point has been
successfully shared.
An imposed single-reality view of history in terms of
‘profound discontinuity’ is what comes through Augustine and which has been
made foundational in Christian teaching.
This single view of history is what is made foundation in
the central control authority and used as the reference backdrop for the
imposing and adminstration of ‘the Law’.
Essentially, this single view of history is what makes it
possible to use a general explicit ‘Law’ as the basis for social dynamics
management. The apartheid supporting government of
So, the western and Christian single-reality-perspective of
‘history’ is what brings in the gap between ‘the teachings of Jesus’ and modern
Christian teachings, and as we are only too aware, the struggle goes on by the
media and those who influence it, to bring us this single reality view of
history as it is playing out. Those backward savage natives, who had a
far better understanding of the way the world works, consistent with the
teachings of Jesus we have all but killed off, .... er, ... subsumed by co-optation into our way of
seeing things, ... and we have certainly put a gag on those traditionalists who
have persisted in their more comprehensive understanding of the world, as well
as those minority interpreters of the teachings of Jesus.
* * *
[original email starts here below]
dear all,
this is
an exploration into what we intend by ‘Law’ and how it effects our world view,
and current political events, ... for your possible interest.
The ‘Law’ and its
Application
* * *
There are
suggestions in the Bible (New Testament) that ‘Law’ is something that applies
only to the individual and that cannot be applied by one person to another, as
is its most common usage in modern Christian societies. See for example Galations III which includes;
“Christ
has purchased our freedom from the curse of the Law by becoming accursed for us
--- because “Cursed is every one who is hanged upon a tree.”
“Why
then was the Law given? It was imposed later on for the sake of defining
sin, until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made,
...”
“Wherefore
the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under
a schoolmaster.”
This is
clearly understood in Buddhism; i.e. the ‘Dharma’ or the ‘Law’ or ‘Truth’ is
something that can only be understood personally, through ‘the path of
awakening’
Why should
it be that we should understand the law personally but not apply it generally,
to others, as in a great many teachings in Buddhism and Christianity? e.g;
Buddha |
Jesus |
"Consider others as yourself." (Dhammapada
10:1) |
Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6:31) |
"If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a
stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil
words." (Majjhima Nikaya
21:6) |
"If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other
also." (Luke 6:29) |
"Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by
love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good
... Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar
by truth." (Dhammapada 1.5 & 17.3) |
"Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
From anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to
everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for
them back." (Luke 6:27-30) |
"If you
do not tend one another, then who is there to tend to you? Whoever would tend
me, he should tend the sick." (Vinaya, Mahavagga 8:26:3) |
"Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the
least of these, you did not do it to me." (Matt. 25:45)arises |
"Abandoning the taking of life, the ascetic Gautama dwells refraining from taking life, without stick
or sword." (Digha Nikaya
1:1:8) |
"Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take
the sword shall perish by the sword." (Matt. 26:52) |
... all these do not equal a sixteenth
part of the liberation of mind by loving kindness. The liberation of mind by
loving kindness surpasses them all and shines forth, bright and brilliant. (Itivuttaka 27;19-2) Just as a
mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so,
cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of
boundless love pervade the whole world." (Metta
Sutta) |
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have
loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for
one's friend." (John 15:12-13) |
It's easy to see the errors of others, but hard to see your own.
You winnow like chaff the errors of others,but conceal your own — like a cheat, an unlucky
throw. If you focus on the errors of others, constantly finding fault, your effluents flourish.You're
far from their ending. (Dhammapada Mahavagga 252-253) |
"Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's
eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Friend, let me take the speck out of your
eye," when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's
eye." (Luke 6:41-42) |
"Do not
look at the faults of others, or what others have done or not done; observe
what you yourself have done and have not done." (Dhammapada
4:7) |
He said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be
the first to throw a stone at her." (John 8:4-7) |
But these three things, monks, shine openly, not in secret. What
three? The moon, the sun, and the Dhamma and
Discipline...(Anguttara Nikaya
3:129) "That
great cloud rains down on all whether their nature is superior or inferior.
The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who
stands high and him who stands low." (Sadharmapundarika
Sutra 5) |
"Your father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on
the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
(Matt. 5:45) |
"Let us live most happily, possessing nothing; let us feed
on joy, like the radiant gods." (Dhammapada
15:4)) |
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the |
"The avaricious do not go to heaven,
the foolish do not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in
charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond." (Dhammapada
13:11) |
"If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and
give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven."
(Matt.19:21) |
What then,
is the application of the ‘Law’ if we are to be tolerant and non-judgemental of
the behaviours of our brothers?
The ‘Law’ =
the Dharma = Truth = The path of awakening ... in
Buddhism is an inner-outer attunement with the
dynamical hostspace of Nature in which we are
included. It is not to do with ourselves as a solitary object whose
behaviour is driven from our internal components and inner purpose, a scenario
that makes us out to be ‘independent’ and solely responsible for the authorship
of our behaviours, out of the context of our inclusion in a dynamical hostspace; e.g. our inclusion in a ‘brotherhood of man’, in
the dynamical One-ness, as is stated in Galations
relative to the issue of the application of ‘Law’;
“In
Him the distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and
female, disappear; ye are all one in Jesus Christ.”
This
statement recalls the atheism/pantheism of the Buddha Dharma and of North
American native atheism/pantheism where there is no separation between ‘the
Divinity’ and the dynamical hostspace of Nature that
we are all included in.
The ‘Law’
starts to take on a different complexion when we understand the world in the
terms that ‘we are all brothers’ that whatever happens, it is ‘our fault’ since
we cannot split ourselves off from our brothers, as we might tend to if we are
Jews and they Greeks or we are Christians and they Muslims etc. etc., ... for ‘In Him, the distinctions ... disappear; we are all one in
Jesus Christ’
This
recalls the laws of physics, as one shifts from Newtonian physics which uses
the ‘object paradigm’ where dynamics are understood in terms of ‘independent
objects’ and their ‘independent object behaviours’ as they act and interact
within an absolute euclidian space that does not
participate in their dynamics. Meanwhile, when we shift gears to
‘relativity’, we find that we have to understand dynamics in terms of the fluid
dynamics of the hostspace we are all included in,
since ‘material bodies’ and ‘matter’ in general are merely local concentrations
of energy in the energy-field-flow or ‘spacetime
continuum’.
In physics,
we could equally say; ‘In Nature, the spacetime continuum, the distinctions between individual
entities, protons and electrons, matter and void, disappear, these are all one
in the Energy-Field-Flowspace’ (‘Spacetime
Continuum’).
I do not
intend to leave this issue of relativity versus ‘Law’ to such an esoteric
statement, and the following examples may make the central point, which is that
the space-excluding ‘object paradigm’ model of dynamics founded on ‘independent
material bodies’ and ‘what they do’ is too simple a model to describe our
everyday experience in the world, since it assumes the non-participation of the
dynamical space we are innately included in, in the manner that a hurricane is
included in atmospheric space or a whorl is included in river-flow (Heraclitus’ example of a world entirely in flux).
In
relativity, ‘space is a participant’; i.e. the dynamical hostspace
(energy-field-flow) inductively actualizes and shapes the behaviours of the
entities included within it. This is the source of ‘self-organization’
where things gather and scatter under one another’s simultaneous mutual
influence (as in the dynamics of the ‘community’ of sun and planets).
Newtonian physics could only describe the movements of the individual
planetary bodies relative to an absolute (Euclidian) space-frame and time
reference (x,y,z,t).
But in fact, the planetary bodies move under one another’s simultaneous
mutual influence since they are bound up in the gravitational field-flow
(gravity does not come from matter, matter is a condensation of the
electromagnetic field, inertial spatial concentration of energy that is
included in the gravitational field).
Ok, with
this foundational background that the reader can refer back to, ... there are
some simple examples common to our experience that can convey how the
behaviours of material entities/organisms are inductively actualized and shaped
by the dynamical hostspace they are included in, ...
as contrasted with the dynamics of material entities/organisms being understood
in terms of THEIR actions and transactions (a standard scenario but one which
implies ABSOLUTE motion of the objects/organisms or individual motion relative
to an absolute space-frame).
Suddenly
and all together, we see a collective of entities begin to move in a highly
coordinated way. Must these entities have highly developed
faculties for coordinating their action.
Not if they are weathervanes whose behaviours are being actualized
and shaped by the dynamics of the hostspace they are
included in; i.e. by a gust of wind.
Their
behaviour, although it IS highly coordinated is not deliberately/intentionally
coordinated. That is, the ‘Law’ of behaviours that orients to independent
objects can say nothing about this sort of coordination which is sometimes
referred to as the ‘self-organization’ built into nature; i.e. organization
where no-one is in charge.
This is the
nature of organization involved in the inverted ‘V’ formation flying of a flock
of wildgeese. One can feel it also in
riding a motorcycle in a group; i.e. each individual is engaging with the
common, shared (air-)space in which everyone is included, the inner-outer
engagements perturbing that common space (one can imagine an invisible inverted
‘V’ zone of turbulence associating with each biker). As the bikes scatter
and gather, the individuals will note that there are some spatial-relational
patterns formed by the bikes where their leathers stop flapping and they need
less than usual ‘throttle’ to go a particular speed. This
represents a resonance between their collective dynamic and the dynamical hostspace in which they are included and it allows them,
like the wildgeese, to go farther and faster for less
expenditure of energy than they could ever do in solo mode.
There is no
‘magic’ here, the same principles are in operation as in the dynamics of
sailboats within the hydraulic regime of the ocean; i.e. the sailboat perturbs
the water as its bow pushes into the water, generating a bow wave and its stern
also perturbs the water by ‘leaving a hole’ as it moves forward, generating a
stern wave. At a certain speed called the ‘hull speed’, the bow
wave and the stern wave interfere with one another so that the sailboat rides
along continuously within the trough formed between the bow wave and the stern
wave. The hull speed in knots is given by 1.34 times the square
root of the lengthe of the hull below the water line
measured in feet. Thus a 16 foot boat would have a hull speed of 4
(square root of 16) times 1.34 = 5.36 knots. The speed goes up with
the length of the boat because longer wavelengths in water travel faster; i.e.
the bigger the trough of the wave the boat can ride along in, the faster the
boat will go because the longer wave length propagates faster in water.
There are
some obvious comparisons to ‘life’ and our response to it in this
example. As a sailboat type person, we can attune to the resonances
in our engagement with the hostspace dynamic we are
included in, and allow these to inductively actualize and shape our
behaviour. As a powerboat type person, we can focus strictly on the
destination we want to expeditiously get to, and so develop our own source of
power to push us through the dynamical hostspace we
are included in, without attuning to it, without allowing it to inductively
actualize and shape our behaviour. What we lose in this power boat mode, is the opportunity for ‘self-organization’ as in
natural communities and ecosystems, allowing the dynamics of the hostspace we are included in, to orchestrate our individual
and collective behaviour. (e.g. when we ‘drive friendly’ on a crowded freeway,
we are in sailboat mode where we allow our individual and collective behaviour
to be inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamics of the freeway flowspace we are included in. We essentially put our
individual behaviour in the service of sustaining a harmonious
spatial-relational flow dynamic).
For those
of us who ‘power-boat’ our way through life, who do not attune to the dynamic
of the hostspace we are included in, but ignore it
and let our attainment of our destination take precedence, we cast aside the
opportunity for mutual self-organization of our community/collective, and the
organization must come instead from our deliberate acts, and the coordination
of the community must come from our deliberate attempts at coordination.
The ‘Law’ in this case IS the law that pertains to ‘independent objects’ which
assumes no participation of space (absolute motion rather than relative
motion).
So for
those who espouse a ‘power boat ethic’ social organization must be deliberately
managed and this leads to a control hierarchy headed up by a paternal leader who
calls the shots, ... much as in the monotheist
religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Buddhism is
an atheist (no paternalist controllers imposing the ‘Law’ on everyone) belief
system which depends upon a self-organizing brotherhood for its social
organization, in the manner of the wildgeese and
friendly freeway drivers, where each person is uniquely situated within the hostspace dynamic and allows their behaviour to be
inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical (brotherhood) community hostspace in which they are uniquely, situationally
included. This is why the ‘Law’ is a personal law and why it is
described as the enlightened path since one must become deeply attuned to the
one’s unique and personal situational inclusion in the hostspace
flow-dynamic aka ‘the tao’.
This
difference in belief is often missed by Christians in their understanding of
Buddhism, as the following commentary from a Buddhist attending a ‘Fraternity
of Faith’ meeting indicates;
http://www.sangharakshita.org/e-parliament.html
A Christian speaker at the Fraternity of
Faiths meeting went a step further than Dr. Mookerjee,
asserting that all religions believed in the Fatherhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Man, and that apart from the former belief the latter was
unthinkable. The Buddhist speaker who followed him had to contradict this
statement, declaring that though Buddhism denied the very existence of God its
followers have exemplified the spirit of Brotherhood more fully than the
adherents of other religions. At the beginning of the speech from which we have
already quoted Dr. Mookerjee said, 'Christianity,
whose doctrine is love, broke out in a fury of persecution and vengeance even
within its own fold. Likewise, Islam, preaching the mercy of God, brandished
almost a merciless sword against non-Islamic religions and peoples. Hinduism in
How determined is the attempt which is being
made in some quarters to force Buddhism into a doctrinal framework thoroughly
repugnant to it was nakedly apparent in the Presidential Address delivered by
the Sankaracharya of Puri
at the First Session of the Congress. The Buddhist representative's emphatic
assertion that Buddhism rejected the idea of God, and exhorted man to depend
for deliverance upon himself alone, had apparently upset His Holiness, who
spent nearly an hour attempting to prove that Buddhists, even though they
professed not to believe in God, really did believe in him, and that atheists
and theists were bound for the same goal.
It is time that Buddhists stopped allowing
people of other religions to tell them what they 'really' believe. Buddhists do
not believe in God, neither do they believe that all religious doctrines
are true. If the organisers of Parliaments of
Religions and Fraternities of Faiths make such beliefs their 'common platform'
then it is obvious that such a platform is not broad enough to accommodate the
followers of atheistic religions. Buddhists should be courageous enough to
refuse to participate in any inter-religious meeting which endeavours
to drag down the Dhamma of the Enlightened One into
the morass of theistic superstition.
* * *
.
Now, this
opens up an obvious question (i.e. what did the Jesus intend?) in view of all
of the commonalities in the teachings of the Buddha and in the teachings of
Jesus, a sampling of which were compared in the above table, a sampling which
suggests that the ‘Law’ is not something to be applied generally to everyone as
a means of assessing the goodness of their behaviour, since their situational
inclusion within the common dynamical hostspace is
unique and particular, and they must learn how to attune in an inner-outer
sense and to let their behaviour be actualized and shaped by the dynamic of the
hostspace so as to serve the sustaining of harmony on
a continuing basis. In the teaching of the Buddha, ‘there is no path to harmony, harmony is the path’.
The ‘Law’
or ‘Dharma’ or ‘Truth’ in the teaching of the Buddha is thus a personal Law
which puts the individual in sailboat mode wherein simultaneous, mutual
self-organizing harmony of the collective (‘true community harmony’) is
possible.
For those
of the powerboat mode who govern themselves according to a general Law that is
prescribed for ‘independent objects/organisms’ whose motive power is sourced
from their self-center (absolutism) and whose direction/behaviour is driven by
their private inner purpose (‘self-interest’), the only form of ‘cooperation’
possible is by deliberate asserting by the individual. Cooperation, as in
a ‘community dynamic’ therefore becomes deliberately/mechanically
constructed, architected, planned, constructed in power boat mode, so that the
‘ends’ justifies the ‘means’ (the desired future result ---- ‘the ends’, ...
reaches back from the future (the abstract vision) to define the behaviours
needed to get there --- ‘the means’). By this ‘power boat’ approach
to social organization, we get the Orwellian paradoxes, ‘war is peace’ (the
ends of peace justify war as the means) contrary to the teaching of the Buddha ‘there is no path to harmony, harmony is the path’.
The other Orwellian paradoxes equally follow from this power boat mode of
social organization, ‘slavery is freedom’ --- the individual commits to
submission to central authority in order to preserve and protect his ‘freedom’,
... and ‘ignorance is strength’ --- those who follow rules blindly, as soldiers
follow their commanding officer, get to share in the power to will and to
command; e.g. as Thomas Mann says in Mario and the Magician addressing
the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s;
“The
capacity for self-surrender, he said, for becoming a tool, for the most
unconditional and utter self-abnegation, was but the reverse side of that other
power to will and to command. Commanding and obeying formed together one
single principle, one indissoluble unity; he who knew how to obey knew also how
to command, and conversely; the one idea was comprehended in the other, as
people and leader were comprehended in one another.”
One might
ask, ‘who’ or ‘what’ is this sailboat mode self-organizing for, if it is not
for man? Why should we formulate ‘Law’ that is general when it imposes
this power boat mode of organization on our human collectives? It
would seem, nevertheless, the naturally evolving human community most often
makes use of the sailboat mode of organization where the individual allows his
behaviour to be inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamic of the host
flow-space he is uniquely, situationally included in,
in pursuit of cultivating and sustaining inner-outer dynamical balance and
harmony. But as the pioneering phase of community is subsumed by
urbanization, there seems to be a shift to the ‘deliberate coordination’ or
‘power boat’ mode of organizing which is purely assertive-constructive and
which elicits hierarchical control structures.
In our
community at large, then, we have a mixture of people who embrace the sailboat
mode of organization and those who embrace the powerboat mode of
organization. We have those who understand ‘Law’ to be personal as in the
Dharma so that it comprehends the individual’s unique situational inclusion in
a common hostspace flow-dynamic wherein we move under
one another’s simultaneous mutual influence (‘the tao’),
and we have those who understand ‘Law’ to be general and to apply to the
behaviour of each individual out of the context of his unique situational
inclusion within a common mutually influencing dynamical hostspace
(an implied understanding of the world dynamic that ignores the inductive
behaviour-shaping role of the hostspace that
individuals are uniquely situationally included in).
As
mentioned above, a collective of objects/organisms can suddenly move together
in concert, like a flock of birds or a school of fish. Such
individual and collective behaviour can be inductively actualized and shaped in
the manner that a bevy of weathervanes affixed to the masts of sailboats in a marina
are actualized (plotting the arrow positions on a map of the marina area would
give the shape of the wind-flow lines in the passage of the wind through the
marina area). This space induced organization is a general mode of
organization in nature, when the lion’s scent arrives on the wind, the
behaviours of those animals that are prey to lions are actualized and shaped,
... organizing their collective behaviour in a highly coherent and coordinated
way, a coordination that is entirely unintentional and non-deliberate on their
part. When the gunslinger comes to town, the saloon becomes emptier than
usual. The individuals involved did not deliberately ‘coordinate
their behaviour’ yet their behaviour is highly coordinated/organized.
So, how do
we account for this high degree of organization with a model or ‘Law’ that
pertains to organisms that are ‘independent’ and whose behaviours are seen as
‘independent’ and self-authored, powered by their internal components
(biochemistry, biophysics) and driven/directed by their notional ‘inner
purpose’?
There is no
way to account for this space-induced organization of collectives/communities
by the forward asserting dynamics of a collection of independent
objects/organisms. The object paradigm (power boat) model is inherently
inadequate for such an accounting.
In order to
proceed in this discussion on ‘the application of ‘Law’’, there is a need to
deepen our understanding of ‘what is wrong with making independent
objects/organisms foundational in our modeling of how things organize.’
The problem with the notion of an (independent) object.
Once we
‘bestow objecthood’ on some material body, organism
or system, we are then free to conceive of it having the capacity for
independent behaviour, behaviour that fully and solely belongs to the
object/organism.
There is a
fallacy in this that has been described in the systems sciences (Russell Ackoff) and in linguistics (George Lakeoff,
Noam Chomsky, Moonhawk).
Ackoff uses the example of the ‘university’ to
illustrate. Within the flowing hostspace
of a community, dynamical patterns begin to evolve like storms in the dynamical
flow-space of the atmosphere, ... These behavioural
patterns are inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamics of the hostspace pulling on ‘behavioural potentials’ within the hostspace. What we bestow objecthood
and call ‘a university’ then, rather than being a ‘thing’ in its own right, is
a ‘dynamical form of organization (DFO) like a standing wave in the
turbulent water-flow and generations of teachers and students will flow through
it. It is inherently an included form within the community hostspace dynamic. As Ackoff
points out, it is possible to inquire into the nature of the university
‘analytically’ by ‘in-and-back-out-again’ inquiry and in so doing we discover
that a university has internal structures, departments, faculties and internal
processes, and after we look inside of the university and label the parts and
processes and understand how they all work together, there is the impression
that the university is a ‘thing in itself’ (‘Ding an sich’)
that is capable of its own behaviour. In other words, we can understand
the university in the ‘power boat’ terms of an independent object capable of
its own internally sourced and driven assertibe
behaviour. But as Ackoff points out, this
would be a very incomplete understanding of a university, since its behaviour
is inductively being actualized and shaped by the dynamical community hostspace it is included in. Therefore the inquiry
that is FIRST needed is ‘out-and-back-in-again’ inquiry that seeks to
understand in sailboat mode terms the inner-outer attuned engagement of the
university with the dynamical community hostspace,
and the meaning of the university and its internal components, rather than
embodying meaning in-their-own-independent-right, take on meaning relative to
the dynamical community hostspace they are included
in.
The natural
self-organizing origins of the university suggest that it is decidedly not an
independent object that is internally powered and driven, but that it is a
dynamical form of organization included within the dynamical hostspace of the community. If the university
‘dies’, nothing is lost other than a dynamical form of organization; i.e. the
teachers, the students, the buildings are all continue on within new dynamical
forms of organization (e.g. similarly when the human organism ‘dies’, nothing
is lost but a dynamical form of organization, the enzymes that were a moment
ago supporting cell-life and maintaining body structure are the next moment,
without skipping a beat, producing alcohols and working within some new
dynamical forms of organization).
The point
is that analytical inquiry and the bestowing of objecthood
work hand and glove together to break the dynamical form of organization out of
its inductive behaviour-actualizing/shaping coupling with the dynamic of the hostspace it is included in, and re-render it in the power
boat terms of an independently behaving object that is fully responsible for
its own ‘internally driven and directed’ behaviour.
Of course,
the university chancellor, president and faculty could start believing that
they are an independent object/system with their own internally driven and
directed behaviour, making ‘their own plans’ for their own ‘desired future’ out
of the context of their behaviour having been inductively actualized and shaped
by the dynamical community hostspace in which case
the university’s sailboat style coupling to the dynamical community hostspace it is included in, would begin to collapse as the
university took on a ‘powerboat’ persona, analogous to the individual who
chooses to ignore attuning to the hostspace dynamic
he is included in and to drive directly to his (self-interest defined)
destination.
Here is the
problem.
The
inductive behaviour-actualizing/shaping relationship between the
entity/organism and the dynamical hostspace it is
included in, is INVISIBLE and available ONLY TO OUR INTUITION. The rational view keys only to what ‘actually happens’, ‘what
visibly and manifestly happens’ which is all in terms of ‘things’ and ‘what
they do’. The laws of physics will inform us on the
behaviour of the weathervane and how it functions and how an applied force here
will turn it like this etc. etc., ... but there is nothing in this
understanding of objects and their behaviour (weathervanes and their behaviour)
that will give us an understanding of how a community of them will, in a highly
coordinated manner, co-form an ‘S’ shape in the marina hostspace
they are included in. Law that applies to individual objects and
their behaviour, is not adequate to address the highly
coordinated behaviour of collectives that is unintentional, that is not driven
from out of the center or interior of the object.
Out of this
‘hole’ in the theory or ‘Law’ of behaviour based on individuals comes
‘conspiracy theory’.
When the
person with smelly feet or bad breath comes into the room, a highly coordinated
collective behaviour is triggered wherein a multiplicity of people withdraw
from the space occupied by the ‘smelly one’. Upon witnessing this
withdrawal, the ‘smelly one’ may think that there is a conspiracy against him;
i.e. that the people in the room intentionally coordinated their actions to
shun him (he may forget about his smelliness) but in fact this coordination of
collective behaviour may well be of the same nature as the highly coordinated
behaviour of the sailboat weathervane collective in the marina.
The first
time the collective withdrawal occurs, the individuals that withdraw operate in
sailboat mode, by allowing their behaviour to be inductively actualized by the
dynamical hostspace they are included in (by the
dynamical flow of smelly air). But the second time round, they may
recognize the smelly one and they may all deliberately choose to avoid him
(they may operate in power mode, to get them to a desired destination far from
the smelly one).. If he has meanwhile ‘cleaned up his act’ and the
collective continues to withdraw upon his entry, ...
then he can rightfully assess that their collective action is deliberate
avoidance or groupthink. They are certainly not in attunement mode where they allow their behaviour to be
inductively shaped in the service of sustaining inner-outer dynamical balance
and harmony. They are instead ‘in-their-heads’ and one whispered ‘here
comes that guy again’, can trigger a mass exodus.
All we know
for sure in this case is in terms of the objects/organisms in the collective
and ‘what they do’. We can never get inside the experience of another to
determine whether they are in sailboat mode attuning to the dynamical hostspace they are included in or in power boat mode where
they are driving their behaviour on the basis of seeking to attain some desired
future or destination.
Certain
people will only trust ‘what they know for sure’ and this means that they will
assume that the highly coordinated behaviour of a collective of humans is
deliberate. There is no way of proving otherwise.
Thus, one American
may assume that the highly coordinated collection of incidents of violence
directed against the US are part of a deliberately coordinated ‘let’s bring
down the US’ conspiracy, while another American may assume that the collection
of incidents involving violence directed against the US are induced by the
‘smelly feet’ of US foreign policy.
To
complicate matters, some of those who claim responsibility for the violence
directed against the
There is no
way of telling for sure (one can only use one’s intuition) as to whether the
apparent coordination is inductively actualized by the dynamical hostspace, the malevolent wind blowing out of Washington
that turns all the weathervanes in a region that the US seeks to control into a
polar opposition against the wind, ... a situation that could be moderated by
moderating the ill wind that blows out of Washington, ... or whether the
coordination is deliberate and coming from the collection of individuals that
deliberately polarize against the US. As in the ‘smelly one’
example, initially the coordination could be hostspace
induced but charges of conspiracy by the US reinforced by claims of conspiracy
by the opposition, could convert the basis of the coordination from hostspace-induced to deliberate conspiracy by the group.
The factual
information in terms of the collective of players and what they do is innately
insufficient to determine for sure whether the coordination is hostspace-induced or deliberately conspired; i.e.
‘intuition’ is required to make such an assessment.
The
following example, in terms of conflicting views in the US Senate during a
debate on non-confidence in Donald Rumsfeld exposes
the dilemma. The following is a transcript from the September 6, 2006
Senate proceedings wherein Senator Conryn (Texas)
uses a collection of events dating from the 1979 Iran Revolution (taking of
hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran) through 9/11 to the present, to make the
case that these constitute a deliberate coordinated conspiracy or ‘undeclared
war’ on the part of Muslims to ‘bring down the United States’.
Senator Conryn takes this conspiracy as a
‘given’ and makes it a cornerstone of his argument, focusing the body of his
argument therefore, how are we going to fight off this deliberately coordinated
conspiracy. Of course, once this conspiracy assumption is accepted, there
is no place to discuss the backing off of US smelly-feet foreign policy wherein
the collection of events involving violence directed at the US are hostspace induced by the ‘ill winds’ blowing out to the
Middle East from Washington., since that possibility is OCCLUDED by the
deliberately coordinated conspiracy assumption. Following Conryn’s statement, there is a brief background to the
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from
Mr.
WARNER. Mr. President, at this time, we seek the benefit of the comments of the
Senator from
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from
Mr.
CORNYN. Mr. President, listening to the comments of our friends across the
aisle, you would think this is more about an election than it is about winning
a war. The problem is not so much in the eyes of the critics or the Islamic
extremists who attacked the
This
is more important than any party. This is more important than any election.
This is more important than any single person. This is about whether we will
win this war that was declared against the United States that we finally woke
up and realized was going on, on September 11. It dates back as long ago as
1979, when the
Our
friends on the other side of the aisle would like to claim that this is all
about
The
fact is that in 1979, when our embassy was captured and Americans were
kidnapped in Tehran, and in 1983, when 241 marines were killed in Beirut by
Hezbollah, the same terrorist organization that has been lobbing Katyusha rockets, supplied by Iran through Syria, into
Israel--yes, this is the same enemy that continued to attack American embassies
in Africa in 2000, and killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole. Yes, this is the same enemy that
killed almost 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, in New York City and
Washington, DC, and but for the brave actions of a few on Flight 93, perhaps
thousands more would have been killed.
Recently,
I attended a speech where the Deputy Secretary of Defense
spoke. He asked the question:
Do
you know why it was that these Islamic extremists killed 3,000 people on
September 11, 2001? It was because they could not kill 30,000, and because they
could not kill 3 million. Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that an ideology
that celebrates the murder of innocent civilians in order to accomplish their
objective would stop at anything, use any weapon at its disposal to accomplish
its ends?
Mr.
President, I disagree with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that
this war is limited to
Unfortunately,
this debate seems to be more about criticizing those who are prosecuting the
war. No, we are not going to be critical of the men and women in uniform, but
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are all too ready to criticize
those who command them, the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense and the Commander in Chief. I am not saying they
don't have a right to criticize them. I am not saying that they have been
perfect and haven't made mistakes. But I think we need to keep our eye on the
threat. The threat is not just
Our
friends on the other side of the aisle talk about a change in direction, fresh
ideas, new direction. Those are campaign slogans. They
are not about solving the problem. They are not about beating the enemy,
defeating the enemy who declared war on us as far back as 1979.
I
know that our colleagues have been critical. Again, they have every right to
be. This is
This
administration and the Secretary of Defense have been
criticized for saying we need to stay the course, we need to keep the faith,
that what we are doing in Iraq and what we are doing in trying to fight and
defeat this enemy of Islamic extremism is important to the security of this
country because if we were to do as some of our friends on the other side of
the aisle suggest and leave Iraq before the Iraqis are able to provide basic
security, it would become another failed state. And, no, this is not George
Bush's
The
Islamic extremists who have declared war on
When
it comes to the issue of how do we deal with those who have been captured on
the battlefield and detained in Guantanamo
Bay--sources of important intelligence that have disrupted and deterred
terrorist attacks and saved American lives--it seems as if the focus is all too
often on what should we be doing to make the detainee's life better rather than
what should we be doing to get that intelligence which will allow us to detect,
deter, and disrupt terrorist activities.
Now
the world has turned an anxious eye toward
Is
there any doubt that if Iran had been able to supply biological, chemical or
nuclear weapons to Hezbollah in order to achieve its stated goal of wiping
Israel off the map, is there any question that they would have withheld their
hand, that they would not have done so?
I
have to say I think this must be a very strange picture to the civilized world,
those who actually believe we are serious about fighting this enemy who has
declared war against the West and against our way of life and against our
values, that instead of focusing together on how do we defeat this enemy who
declared war on us, we have somehow turned this into an election-year effort to
discredit and vote no confidence for the Secretary of Defense.
It is the wrong direction.
Our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle say there is no plan for success and,
of course, there is. It is to provide training to the Iraqi security forces so
they can provide security, and we can bring our troops home, allow this new
Government in Iraq to resolve its differences after 30 years of tyranny, try to
work through the sectarian conflicts by creating a coalition government, and
then to allow the Iraqi people to enjoy the prosperity so they can see the
benefits of self-determination and free and fair elections.
But
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to be long on criticism,
long on complaints, and short on plans. They have yet to offer a single
concrete idea about what they would do differently to win this war and defeat
this enemy. I, as one Senator, would welcome their ideas, if they have ideas,
so we can work together to defeat the common enemy because, as I said, this is
more important than any election, than any party or any person. This is about
the safety and security of our Nation and our hope and dream that the values we
represent can be exported--and the blessings of liberty along with it--to other
nations that have never known anything but the boot heel of a tyrant.
I
hope our colleagues will reconsider and will not pursue this distraction, will
not pursue this unwise and inappropriate vote of no confidence against the
Secretary of Defense.
Mr.
President, I yield the floor.
*
* *
The
collection of events that have involved violence directed against the US have
in many cases been responses to political hostspace
dynamics, conditioned by the US, that have induced violent behaviours
particular to the region and circumstance, directed against the US.
This suggests that the coordination (many regions lining up
together against the US) is not deliberate coordination on the part of the
violence-doers, but represents behaviour that is being inductively actualized
and shaped by the socio-political hostspace dynamic
(by ill winds from Washington). For example, the hostage-taking in
Tehran has the following his
“Although
the 1979 revolution brought an Islamic republic to power, headed by the clergy
and Ayatollah Khomeini, it was the urban poor that sparked the revolution--and
the left that played a crucial part in organizing the protests. Ultimately,
strikes and workplace occupations by
The role of
British and US intelligence agencies in the coup and the devious tactics used
became public later on. In March 2000 then secretary of state
Madeleine Albright stated her regret that Mossadegh
was ousted:
"The Eisenhower administration believed
its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a
setback for
In the same year, the New York Times
published a detailed report about the coup based on CIA documents.
There is strong intuitive evidence here that the toppling
of the Shah was NOT part of an Islamic conspiracy to bring down the US, though
some Islamic extremists may have claimed so (more likely the claims at that time
were to ‘stay out of the Middle East’), but was induced by a political-social hostspace dynamic in which ill winds continued to blow out
of London and Washington. That is, there was every indication
that the moderating of those humiliating foreign policy winds could improve the
situation; i.e. as Madeleine Albright says; “it is
easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by
There is siimilar intuitive
evidence associated with other of the events involving violence against the
Summary of Part I of The
Application of the ‘Law’
There is an innate ambiguity as to whether we understand
organization of collectives or ‘community organization’ in terms of the
deliberate behaviours of the individuals in the collective
or in terms of the manner in which individual and collective behaviours are inductively actualized and shaped by the
dynamics of the hostspace they are included in (as in
the coordinated behaviour of weathervanes in common
air-flow-space).
An associated question arises with respect to the nature
of ‘Law’ in natural philosophy and in religion. Is ‘Law’ general
and explicit and for describing the behavior of others? Or is ‘Law’
personal and uniquely situational as in the ‘Law’ = Dharma = ‘Truth’ of the
teachings of the Buddha? An ambiguity arises in interpreting the
intention, in this regard, of the teachings of Jesus since there is more accord
between the teaching of Buddha and the teachings of Jesus that suggests that
Jesus also intended ‘Law’ to be personal rather than general, though Christian
teaching seems to accept that ‘Law’ can be general and explicit rather than
personal and situational. Is there a discrepancy here between Christian
teaching and the teaching of Jesus so that the intention of Jesus falls closer
to the teaching of Buddha than to the mainstream Christian teaching?
Related inquiry into the ambiguity in how we understand
collective organizing has been done in the systems sciences (Ackoff) which shows that the ambiguity as to whether
organization is causally driven or spatially induced is a general ambiguity
that associates with our method of inquiry. If we inquire in an
‘in-and-back-out-again’ analytical manner, we end up with a view of the system
as an independent entity whose behaviour pushes is
driven by internal power and directed by notional ‘inner purpose’ (as in the
example of a ‘university’). If, on the other hand, we inquire in an
‘out-and-back-in-again’ inclusional manner, we end up
with a view of the system as a dynamical form of organization (DFO) within the
dynamical community hostspace it is included
in. The DFO, unlike the independent object (we can use the example of
university) is a flow-pattern through which the constituents pass; i.e.
generations of teachers and students pass through the ‘university’ seen as a
dynamical form of organization within the dynamical community hostspace.
As people capable of both modes of inquiry, were we
participants in the university, we could alternatively consider ourselves (a)
as constituents of an independent object/organism that was powered from within
and which was driven and directed from an inner purpose; i.e. a ‘deliberately’
constructed and operated organization, ... or (b) as dynamical forms of
organization inclusionally nesting within a dynamical
form of organization which in turn is inclusionally
nesting within the dynamical form of organization known as community or habit
(it is innately spatial-relational).
In the (a) mode of understanding ourselves, we choose
what we want to do and we set about making it happen; i.e. we are in ‘powerboat
mode’.
In the (b) mode of understanding ourselves, we allow our behaviour to be inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical
hostspace we are included in; i.e. we are in
‘sailboat mode’.
As participants in a ‘university’, or indeed in any sort
of collective, we always have this (a) and (b) choice.
When we look out into the dynamical space we are included
in, there are many people out there and many coordinated collective
actions. There is no way to know whether the organization of
collectives that we see is coming about because of people being in (a) mode or
(b) mode since the only tangible evidence we have available is in terms of
‘people’ and ‘what they do’. If everyone makes themselves scarce
when we come into the room, is this highly coordinated behaviour
coming from (a) or (b); i.e. if we are ‘smelly’ it could be (b), a
spatial-relationally induced organizing of behaviour,
but it could equally be (a) a deliberate conspiracy on the part of the
collective, perhaps because they’ve been told that we are ‘smelly’.
If I clean up my act and the withdrawal of others when I enter the room
ceases, one might guess the organizing of behaviour
was spatially induced, however, if there is no change, then one might guess
that it is a deliberately coordinated ‘conspiracy’.
The example of US Senate discussions was used where these
two different assumptions come into conflict. That is, across the Middle
East, in
As the example of the university administration
alternatives indicate, we could live in a world where everyone operates in
power-boat mode all of the time, where we make up our minds as to what we want
to do and commit our energies to achieving it, ignoring and bulling our way
through the accommodating backpressures (receptive/resistive) of the dynamical hostspace we are included in. Clearly this is not
consistent with the ‘Law’ of the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, ... but is it consistent with the ‘Law’ of the
teachings of Jesus?
If the ‘power boat mode’ was all she wrote, then Senator Conryn would be necessarily right in his claims of
conspiracy, since all coordination of collectives would then be deliberate and
no one would allow their behaviour to be inductively
actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace they
were included in, sailboat style, ... unless they could not avoid it (e.g. the
Titanic was in power boat mode but the ice-berg filled hostspace
dynamic it was included in, which it should have allowed to inductively shape
its behaviour, had the last word). That is, the
power boat mode which resists allowing our behaviour
to be inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace
we are included in can only be a tendency since we are inextricably included
within a hostspace dynamic that present to us
non-zero accommodating backpressure that can be receptive in places and
resistive in others, relative to whatever assertive power we may muster (the
sailboat master could strap a huge outboard on his stern to push him directly
to his desired destination instead of attuning through tacks and jibes and helm
adjustments to the flow he is included in, but in a severe storm, he must, if
he and his vessel are to survive, relax his destination orientation and allow
his behaviour to be orchestrated by the pursuit of
dynamical balance and the sustaining of harmony with the dynamical space he is
included in).
Within the One-ness of brotherhood, those with the most
power may tend towards the ‘power boat’ destination orientation while those
with less power may be obliged to seek attunement to the dynamical hostspace they are included in. When a big power boat
passes and leaves a giant wake, the small sailboat owner has no choice (if he
is to survive) but to allow his course to change so as to ensure safe passage
through the wake.
Finally (for Part I), Is ‘Law’
general and explicit and for describing the behavior of others? Or is
‘Law’ personal and uniquely situational as in the ‘Law’ = Dharma = ‘Truth’ of
the teachings of the Buddha? And, did Jesus have the same intent for
conveying an understanding of ‘Law’ as the Buddha, ...
or Not? That is, did Jesus intend to support the general
application of ‘Law’ to guide and assess the behaviour
of others as in mainstream Christian teaching?
* * *
Part II Language and the
‘Law’
This is essentially a supportive footnote to Part I, that
briefly explores how the intent of the teaching of Jesus with respect to ‘Law’,
had it been the same intent as the teaching of the Buddha, might have been
‘lost in translation’.
Clearly there is conflict in the Christian teachers
interpretation of the New Testament’s = Greek Scripture’s capture (of doubtful
integrity) of the teachings of Jesus. As has already been mentioned,
along with included examples in the table, there is great similarity between
the teachings of Buddha and the teachings of Jesus on issues of ‘judgement’ of others, or rather of ‘suspending judgement of others’. For example, regarind
the conjoined implications of the following;
“In
Him the distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and
female, disappear; ye are all one in Jesus Christ.” (Galatians III 28)
"Why
do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do
not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Friend, let me take the speck out of your
eye," when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite,
first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take
the speck out of your neighbor's eye." (Luke
6:41-42)
There is the suggestion, as in the Buddha Dharma, of
‘inclusion’ in a common ‘All’ (the ‘All’ of the dynamical hostspace
of nature) and the ‘speck’ in the neighbour’s eye
recalls our failure to ‘see’ our own inclusion and interdependent involvement
in the dynamics we purport to be ‘going on out there’;
"Do not
look at the faults of others, or what others have done or not done; observe
what you yourself have done and have not done." (Dhammapada
4:7) |
He said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be
the first to throw a stone at her." (John 8:4-7) |
These teachings of the Buddha and Jesus come to mind re
the understanding that Senator Conryn would seek to
have prevail. That is, that one’s own participation in a common hostspace dynamic may be inducing the organized anger
directed towards oneself (one’s community) that he claims is jump-started from
a deliberate conspiracy on the part of others.
While the Buddha Dharma invites one to orient to
inner-outer attunement and the sustaining of harmony and balance in the
evolving common hostspace of the continuing present,
... Christian teaching in its popular deployment embraces an ‘absolute’,
‘explicit’ generalized ‘Law’ that can be applied to any/all individual, seeing
them as independent objects/organisms possessing ‘free will’ who sole-author
and are fully responsible for their own behaviour.
Meanwhile the evolving space of the continuing now of the Buddha
Dharma implies that behaviour-inducing tensions
(karma) that arise in the common evolving hostspace
inductively organize our behaviours; i.e. this
understanding of the origin of behaviour (which
accords with relativity) transcends the notion that behaviour
is sole-sourced from within the interior of independent
objects/systems/organisms.
Thus when all the spears turn and point to the US at the
same time, it is not necessarily the case that this coordination is deliberate
and starts from the interior of the spearholders, it
may be the case that hostspace-induced behaviour is involved here, as in the weathervane example.
If the common flow-space of Nature that we share inclusion in is an
energy-field-flow space while our ‘independent beings’ who jumpstart their behaviours from out of their interior is an overly
simplified mental model, then the practice of splitting out individuals and
THEIR behaviours for assessment relative to
absolute/explicit generally applicable ‘Law’ is also to oversimplify what is
going on. The alternative would be to embrace an ethic of seeking
dynamical balance and harmony in the continuing present, as in the teachings of
the Buddha (otherwise, we find Jean Valjean guilty as
charged, though his criminal behaviour of stealing a
loaf of bread was inductively shaped by a dynamical hostspace
in which he could no longer stand hearing children crying out in hunger while
they lived in the midst of plenty.). The issue is not whether or not this
view of causal criminal behaviour is ‘true’ any more
than the view of a university as an independent system powered by its internal
components and driven and directed by an inner purpose or strategic plan, ‘is
true’. The issue is whether the view of the university as a
dynamical form of organization included within the community hostspace dynamic is ‘more true’
(and likewise for an ‘individual’ such as Jean Valjean).
Certainly on the ‘death’ of the university or of the individual
Nature loses nothing (everything remains included and nothing is excluded).
It is the dynamical form of organization, that is lost as new dynamical
forms of organization draw in what has been let go of by the outgoing dynamical
form of organization, but dynamical form is a subjective experience that may
not be shared across mice men and microbes though ‘everything is included’ in
the overall dynamical hostspace.
What is at issue in the interpretations of the teachings
of Jesus is the language translations (e.g. there are arguments over the
primacy of the Aramaic version of the New Testament over the Greek Scriptures
etc. (seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_primacy#Mistranslations
) and also over the different interpretations implicit in
the Aramaic spoken by Jesus which are not conveyable in Greek; e.g. work by
Sufi scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz in exploring the deeper layers of meaning that
can be enfolded in the Aramaic;
“Unlike Greek, Aramaic does not draw sharp lines
between means and ends, or between an inner quality and an outer action. Both
are always present. When Jesus refers to the 'kingdom of heaven', this kingdom
is always both 'within' and 'among' us. Likewise, 'neighbor'
is both inside and outside, as is the 'self' that we are to love to the same
degree as our 'neighbor'. Unlike Greek, Aramaic
presents a fluid and holistic view of the cosmos. The arbitrary borders found
in Greek between 'mind', 'body', and 'spirit' fall away."
This
difficulty in conveying something as being, at the same time, an inductively
actualizing form of organization within a dynamical hostspace
AND a dynamical entity that is asserting in its own right, as in Ackoff’s ‘out-and-back-in’ inclusional
inquiry that reciprocally complements the ‘in-and-back-out-again’ (analytical)
inquiry using the example of ‘the university’, crops up in anthropological
studies of many cultures, in the Kabbala, in Alchemy,
in the psychology of C.G Jung and is discussed by Mircea
Eliade in The Two and the One in the context
of The Myth of the Androgyne, the recurring theme
that recognized in God there is no more division for God is All and One;
“The
androgyne is also vouched for by the Gospel of
Thomas, which, while not properly a gnostic work,
testifies to the mystical climate of early Christianity. ..
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said to the disciples;
‘And when you make the inner as the outer,
and the outer as the inner, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male
and female into a single one so that the male shall not be male and the female
(shall not) be female, then shall you enter (the Kingdom).”
Other writings contain similar passages on the
reunion of the sexes as an image of the Kingdom. When asked at what
moment the Kingdom would come, the Lord himself replied;
“When the two shall be
one, the outside like the inside, the male with the female neither male nor
female. (Second Epistle of Clement).
...
Hermes
Trismegistus reveals to Asclepius
that ‘God has no name, or rather he has all names
since he at once One and All’. Infinitely rich with the fertility of both
sexes, he is continually bringing to birth all those things that he planned to
create. ‘What, you say that God has both sexes, Trismegistus?’
‘Yes, Asclepius, and not God alone
but all things animal and vegetable.’
The point
here, to which Eliade devotes an entire book, is that
‘this universal bisexuality as a model and principle
of all existence’ which crops up everywhere
‘not only in the Mediterranean world of the ancient Near-East, but in a number
of other exotic and archaic cultures, can only be explained by the fact that it
offers a satisfactory picture of divinity, in other words of the ultimate
reality, as an indivisible totality’. The myth of the androgyne
implies that ‘perfection and therefore Being
ultimately consists of a unity-totality. Everything that exists
must therefore be a totality, carrying the coincidentia
oppositorum to all levels and applying it to all concepts.’.
* * *
Relativity
and quantum physics have brought scientists back to this simultaneous inner and
outer reciprocal-complementary dynamics. Matter itself as Schroedinger observes is ‘schaumkommen’
or ‘appearances’ since the basic ‘particle’ in quantum wave dynamics is radial
inner-outer resonance (energy-field-flow). Niels
Bohr ("Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think." ) chose
the yin/yang symbol for his coat-of-arms and the motto Contraria sunt
complementa
(opposites are complementary).
The problem
of representing a relative or quantum reality in words is that ‘objects’ will
not longer do the trick since matter is now a local concentration within the
‘All’ of the energy-field-flow-space and everything is in a continuous flux or
spatial-relational transformation. What we call ‘objects’ are being
dissolved in the energy-field-flow-space they are included in, and new objects
are precipitating and others are undergoing accretion etc.
This is essentially what has been described in the discussion on understanding ‘the university’ in the context of a dynamical form of organization that is being continuously inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace in which it is included. This is a general model that goes beyond simple objecthood by being fully spatial-relational. The ‘androgynous’ aspect is that the dynamical hostspace it is included in and which is inductively actualizing and shaping its behaviour (DFOs are made solely of spatial-relational behaviour) is the outside-inward sucking female aspect that is the mother that is giving it form, while the complementary reciprocal inside-outward-burgeoning assertive potentials are its male aspect.
Hence Niels Bohr’s Contraria sunt complementa, not to mention the Gospel of Thomas and the union of opposites in Buddhism; “the union of emptiness and form, nirvana and samsara, wisdom and compassion. The female aspect stands for emptiness, nirvana, and wisdom, as we saw in Chapter 22, where insubstantiality was represented in the form of the goddesses Nairatmya and Vajravarahi. The male aspect stands for form (phenomenal appearance), samsara, and compassion (skillful means).
Our ordinary language in terms of physical things does not
really lend itself to the type of issues that associate with simultaneous
‘union-of-opposites’ and the difference between ‘objects/organisms and their
self-initiated behaviours’ versus dynamical forms of
organization that are included in the overall dynamical hostspace
of Nature, and/or the associated issue of whether the organization of a
collective is deliberately constructed or inductively actualized by the
dynamical hostspace it is included in (as was at
issue in the US Senate non-confidence in Rumsfeld
debate).
This exposure to ‘lost-in-translation’ was handled in the
preservation of the teachings of the Buddha by building an understanding of the
needed two levels of language into the teachings themselves. Thus the
apparent internal conflict in conveying an understanding of ‘Law’ in Christian
teaching (is ‘Law’ personal or is it general and appropriate for assessing and
addressing the behaviours of others?) may have been
bypassed in Buddha Dharma in the manner in which language was used transport the
teachings of the Buddha over the centuries. That the teachings of Buddha
were not ‘language sensitive’ is an accepted fact as the following comments
indicate;
2. EMBRACING
DIALECTS
One of the most
significant aspects of Buddhism is that it embraced dialects without any
hesitation as fit vehicles for its scriptures. Gautama
Buddha, thus, inaugurated a linguistic revolution. This position of Gautama Buddha was against the tradition of holding
Sanskrit as the most sacred, if not the only sacred language, for Hindu
Scriptures. Early Buddhist scriptures were all written in Pali,
perhaps the dialect spoken by Gautama Buddha himself.
Although Pali, thus, acquired an important place in
Buddhism, the Buddhist monks and scholars were encouraged to use the dialects
and languages of the people whom they were trying to lead to the Buddha Marga.
3. PALI AND
BUDDHISM
Pali is considered to be one of the dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan. It
appears that the Pali used in early Buddhist
Scriptures, followed in Theravada Buddhism practiced in
Although Pali is thus "frozen" in some sense in the
philosophical discourses of Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist monks, in countries
where Buddhism became the dominant majority religion, continuously adopted Pali terms for names, places, and processes and other words
and changed their pronunciation and spelling according to the genius of their
languages. The adaptations were not looked down upon, nor was it claimed
that the sacredness of the Buddhist concepts was lost because of translation or
adaptation.
* * *
How were the teachings of the Buddha, which had the job
of conveying many of the same subtle concepts as the teachings of Jesus,
indemnified against loss-in-translation by their capture in different languages
with different capacities for conveying meaning? The following excerpt
from an article on this topic presents the basics of the two-tiered system used
to avoid such loss;
http://www.buddhadasa.com/naturaltruth/twolanguage1.html
(Note: ‘Dhamma’ is ‘Dharma’ in Pali (Dharma is Sanskrit copied in English; i.e. they are
the same meaning)
“It is essential always to interpret the Buddha's teaching in terms
of Dhamma language as well as in terms of everyday
language. Both meanings must be considered. Please take careful note of the
following passages:
Appamatto ubho
atthe adhiganhati pandito,
Ditthe dhamma ca yo attho, yo
ca'ttho saparayiko.
Atthabhisamayadhiro pan d ito
ti pavuccati.
The wise and heedful person is familiar with both
modes of speaking: the meaning seen by ordinary people and the meaning which
they can't understand. One who is fluent in the various modes of speaking is a
wise person.
This is a
general principle to be applied when studying Dhamma,
whether at a high or low level. It is also applicable in ordinary spoken
language. The passages cited contain the unambiguous expression "ubho atthe," that is "both meaning" or "both modes of speaking." A
discerning person must consider both meanings or modes
of speaking and not just one of them alone. Anyone who, for instance, considers
only the ordinary everyday meaning and ignores the other meaning, the meaning
in terms of Dhamma language, cannot be called a wise
or discerning person. As the Buddha said, a discerning person is one who is
able to take into consideration both modes of speaking. It behoves us, then to
be careful and to study diligently in order to acquire this ability to take
into account both possible interpretations, the one in terms of everyday
language and the other in terms of Dhamma language.
“We shall now
consider some examples of what I mean. Each of the following words will be
explained according to both everyday language and Dhamma
language. This should enable you to clearly understand both modes of expression.
BUDDHA
The first
example is the word "Buddha." As you know, the word "Buddha"
in everyday language refers to the his
Considered in
terms of Dhamma language, however, the
word "Buddha" refers to the
Truth which the his
One who see the Dhamma sees the Tathagata. (a word the Buddha often used to refer to himself)
One who see the Tathagata sees the Dhamma. One
who sees not the Dhamma, though grasping at the robe
of the Tathagata, cannot be said to have seen the Tathagata.
Now, the Dhamma is something intangible. It is not something
physical, certainly not flesh and bones. Yet the
Buddha said it is one and the same as the Enlightened One. "One who sees
the Dhamma sees the Tathagata."
Anyone who fails to see the Dhamma cannot be said to
have seen the Enlightened One. So in Dhamma language,
the Buddha is one and the same as that Truth by virtue of which he became the
Buddha, and anyone who sees that Truth can be said to have seen the true
Buddha. To see just his physical body would not be to see the Buddha at all and
would bring no real benefit.
During the
Buddha's lifetime, the majority of people were unfavorably
disposed towards him. Some abused him and even did him physical harm. They
didn't understand him because what they saw was only his physical body, the
outer shell, the Buddha of everyday language. The real Buddha, the Buddha of Dhamma language, is the Truth in his mind, knowing which
the man because "Buddha." When he said, "Whoever sees the Truth
see me. Whoever sees me sees the Truth," he was
speaking Dhamma language.
Again, the
Buddha said, "The Dhamma and the Vinaya (Discipline), which I have proclaimed and have demonstrated, these shall be your teacher when I have passed away."
Thus the real Buddha has not passed away, has not ceased to exist. What ceased
to exist was just the physical body, the outer shell. The real Teacher, that
is, the Dhamma-Vinaya, is still with us. This is the
meaning of the word "Buddha" in Dhamma
language. The "Buddha" of Dhamma language
is the Dhamma itself, which made him Buddha.
DHAMMA
The second word to
consider is "Dhamma" (Dharma in Sanskrit).
At the childish level of everyday language, the word is understood as referring
to the actual books that contain the scriptures, the "Dhamma" in
the bookcase. Or it may be understood as referring to the spoken word used in expounding the Teaching.
This is the meaning of the word "Dhamma" in everyday language.,
the language of deluded people who has not yet seen the true Dhamma.
In term of Dhamma language, the Dhamma
is one and the same as the Enlightened One. "One who see
the Dhamma sees the Tathagata.
One who sees the Tathagata see
the Dhamma." This is the real Dhamma. In the original Pali
language, the word "Dhamma" was used to
refer to all of the intricate and involved things that go to make up what we
call Nature. Time will not permit us to discuss this point in detail here, so
we shall mention just the main points. The word "Dhamma" embraces:
1. Nature
itself;
2. The law of Nature;
3. The duty of each human being to act in accordance with the Law of Nature;
4. The benefits to be derived from this acting in accordance
with the Law of Nature.
This is the wide
range of meaning covered by the word "Dhamma."
It does not refer simply to books, palm-leaf manuscripts, or the voices of
preachers. The word "Dhamma," as used in Dhamma language, refers to
non-material things. Dhamma is all-embracing; it is
profound; it includes all things, some difficult to understand and some not so
difficult.
* * *
This two-tiered method of conveying the subtle ideas of
religious teaching such as ‘union-of-opposites’ parallels the problem of
conveying two meaning of ‘university’ as discussed earlier. The one
meaning is the everyday physical meaning in terms of the visible tangible structures,
the teachers, the students. But the higher level meaning of ‘university’
is as a dynamical form of organization inductively actualized and shaped by the
dynamical community hostspace that it is included in,
that the tangible elements flow through, and it is not a visible, picturable thing (it is a continuing union-of-opposites).
Summary
of Part II of The Application of the ‘Law’
Part I of The
Application of the ‘Law’ pointed out that there are many similarities
between the teachings of the Buddha and the teachings of Jesus and that these
similarities point to a view of ‘Law’ that is personal and not ‘general’ and
‘explicit’ such that the ‘Law’ can be used to assess and address the behaviour
of others. Also explored was an example of the split between people’s
understanding of a common experience which exposes alternative ways in which we
can understand collective organization, either by deliberate forward
construction or by the inductive influence of the dynamical hostspace,
and the fact that the hard data is innately lacking to prove which is ‘most
true’ in any particular case. This ambiguity was mapped to the issue of
whether we found our understanding of reality on the basis of ‘independent
objects/organisms’ and their ‘independent object/organism behaviours’, or
whether we ground our understanding of reality in terms of dynamical forms of
organization (DFOs) inductively shaping up within the
dynamical hostspace they are included in.
Conceiving of ‘Law’ in explicit terms for general application is consistent
with the object based world view (the ‘object paradigm’) while conceiving of
law in the Dharma terms of the teachings of Buddha is consistent with the
dynamical form of organization of ‘union-of-opposites’ view of the world.
The ‘bottom line’ is that there is a strong suggestion that the teachings of
Jesus mirror the teachings of the Buddha with respect to seeing the ‘Law’ as
personal ‘truth’ based on natural experience, even though the common Christian
teaching is to conceive of ‘Law’ in explicit terms amenable to general
application.
Part II of The
Application of the ‘Law’ ;i.e. Language and the ‘Law’ explores how
the intent of the teachings of Jesus with respect to the ‘Law’ that mirror the
teachings of the Buddha, as is strongly suggested, might have been ‘lost in
translation’. What is suggested is that the teachings of the Buddha
in themselves included a two-tiered language schema that ‘instructs’ the reader
how to interpret the teachings as captured in language; i.e. there is explicit
instruction that the language cannot be interpreted literally since the
language used is nominally ‘everyday language’ in terms of physical objects.
The second tier language is the Dharma language which has the
listener interpret the words in the sense of ‘flow’ (the word Buddha has the
first tier meaning of the physical man while the word Buddha has a second tier
Dharma meaning in the sense of the Truth that came to the Buddha and that he
shared). However one rates the two-tiered language capture of the
teachings of the Buddha relative to the one tier
let-the-Christian-scholars-and-priests-argue-it-out capture of the teachings of
Jesus, ... what emerges clearly is that there is no doubt left to the reader of
the teachings of the Buddha that the ‘Law’ is a personal law (as is also
alluded to in Galations III of the New
Testament). Whereas, in the teachings of Jesus that mirror the teachings
of the Buddha, there is a consistent implication that the ‘Law’ is personal,
for our guidance on the way to enlightenment or ‘faith’, and that we cannot use
it in an explicit, generalized form for assessing and addressing the behaviours
of others. So what comes out of the interpretations of the New Testament
(which are still being argued over as to what has been ‘lost in translation’ is
that there is a radical inconsistency between the mainstream Christian
teachings (e.g. as to the nature and application of the ‘Law’) and what one
would take to be the teachings of Jesus in their mirroring of the teachings of
the Buddha (i.e. that the ‘Law’ is for personal guidance).
What does
it matter anyway?
As explored
in the example of the US Senate proceedings, our two different notions of ‘Law’
would have one group of people applying explicit law to judge others on the
merits of their own behaviour seen as ‘independent’ and jumpstarted from their
internal free will as driven and directed by their inner purpose that they are
100% responsible for. This view fails to acknowledge that man, and
all objects, are dynamical forms of organization (union-of-opposites) whose
behaviours are inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace they are uniquely, situationally
included in (the reason why ‘Law’ must be personal); i.e. in other words that
there is one brotherhood of man, the “all are one in
Jesus Christ” just as “all are one in the Buddha Dharma”, .. so that as we as brothers move
forward so must we as brothers accommodate our forward movement. This is hardly
realized when we rigidly hold out for achieving our private self-interest
driven destinations. If we are one brotherhood bound together in a
continuing inner-outer balance seeking dynamic, then it follows that we must
concede that the behaviours of our brothers in the Middle East, for example,
reflect back to us our own behaviours and that they are not exclusively theirs.
This
difference in how we conceive of the ‘Law’ and its application, therefore, maps
directly into the split whereby we see others as deliberately coordinating
polarized behaviours against us, or whether we understand their behaviours as
being inductively actualized and shaped by the dynamical hostspace
we all share inclusion in, an energy-field-flowspace
in which some insensitive ill winds contributed by us may be bringing their
spears around in a highly coordinated way to point at us, in the manner of the
bevy of weathervanes in a marina responding as a group, but without deliberate
coordination, to a windflow in the dynamical hostspace that they share inclusion in.
If we want
to better understand the source of this split in views, we may want to question
the intention in the teachings of Jesus in regard to how he conceived of the ‘lLaw’ and its application and if it does mirror the
intention in the teachings of the Buddha and therefore, if there is not a
contradiction in this regard between popular Christian teachings and the
INTENDED teachings of Jesus.
* * *