uh… crossing da’ath isn’t just for judeochristians anymore

“pride’ll come before the fall”
-steve taylor

but on a personal note, this ‘endless becoming‘ sort of denies your inertial buddhastate and points towards an external source of enlightenment

i have it on good authority 3 days by the river will do it for what its worth

Ever thought about the ministry?

Yes, I have thought about it very deeply!

Wow, that Argyris stuff sounds fascinating. If you have any links and/or book titles, please let me know!

There’s a field of science/sociology called ‘Action Science’ championed by a bloke called Argyris. Argyris explored why people’s actions rarely match their intent - free and open dialogue, for example, often degenerates into protectionism and argument. Briefly, he ran tape-recorder sessions where, after some effort, he could persuade people that they /saw the world incorrectly/, that the link between their intent and their action was broken in certain cases. His students would fight this tooth and claw, but eventually submit to this conculsion - at which point they reached a kind of crisis where they could no longer act at all. Argyris theorised that people have an internalised model of the world that allows them to act in it. Once this is cast into doubt, for a time they cannot act. Therefore the mind has a kind of ‘immune system’ that protects the ability to act at all costs - even the cost of acting poorly. Arygris theorised that this immune system can be an obstacle to real learning. ‘The parts of yourself that [you] truly cling to’ - rang a bell with me.

There’s an old saying about the three stages of ‘illumination’,
Lord, use me.
Lord, use me but don’t break me.
Lord, I don’t care if you break me.

(Change gender or plurality of deity to suit, of course!)

My interpretation is that sometimes we *need* to break. If our selves become too rigid, then we can only get past this by shattering… and then ‘pulling ourselves together’ we learn a lot about what actually constitutes our self.
Solve et coagula, as the alchemists say - dissolve and reform.

what hit me more than anything was all of the attachments, desires and appetites that I have.

Another thing that strikes me with regards to all of this as well is that SO MUCH of human interaction socially has to do with satisfying our desires. When you start fasting, stop drinking, become celibate, etc, all of a sudden you’re no longer living a “normal” human life. Social interactions can become strange because we’re so habitually accustomed to working together with one another to alleviate these desires.

Not that I think that’s wrong or bad that this is how things are. But I do think there’s something wrong with not realizing that this is the basis of so much of our social interaction…

As far as methods of sacrifice, giving things up, I find substitution of x thought, tendency, etc for something else effective. It is incredibly difficult, takes eternal vigilance until one day–poof! You can start with anything. I found that starting with x will lead you to y which will lead you deeper and deeper, so that you uncover things as you go along…things you might not have been willing to acknowledge or prepared to handle before.