IndieAgora

We can often cling to our preconceived notions of truth, so much so that we can be blinded to the truth.

A great Zen example of this is when a man loses his home in a fire and finds a charred body which he takes to be his son and so he grieves for his son. One day, a few months later, there is a knock at the door and they claim to be his son. His son was kidnapped by bandits in the fire and he managed to escape. His father will not answer the door, convinced he has the body of his son who he has grieved for and mourned, his real son turns away and he loses his son forever.

Awesome! I am an utterly convinced fanatic, luckily my belief is so open ended and encompassing that everything is opened and explanable by it rather than narrow beliefs or very specific detailed mechanisms or ordered operations, it is simply The Power, and The Experience or Information it generates and destroys freely, so that anything can happen or be experienced or be entirely convincing or not, the world could be made to agree in a second or all go mad in our experience, its all easy and we are left helpless and afraid while aware but empowered in some sense by the knowledge of Chaos Uncontrollable.

Capital T Truth to me is that which persists whether we believe in it or not and is pretty much relegated to the natural/universal  forces that shape all transient physical phenomenon. 

I also see subjective truth which is what a person believes to be true. And relative truth which would be currently existing social structures, conspiracies behind political theater, personas etc. They arise for a time and then pass away.

In these physical vehicles we are naturally shielded from the full Truth although completely subject to it. Take for instance the objective truth reveiled by the organ of sight.  Our eyes only pick up .0023% of the full electromagnetic spectrum.  I wonder if anybody could even function being able to see 100% of it! Our heart is the biggest electromagnetic field generator in our body measurable up to 3 m away and the electromagnetic force has infinite range. Imagine being able to see people's emotional thoughts as soon as they thought them and flung them at you....I imagine it would be terrifying to most and informational overload to the rest.

As regards subject and objective truth, Nietzsche’s idea of value is radically different from the philosophical mainstream, in at least two important ways. First, there are no such things for Nietzsche as “intrinsic” values belonging to things “in themselves”, and certainly not as universal or timeless values. A thing – an object, an action, an event, an idea, money, human labour, a moral code, laughter in the marketplace, or whatever – has no meaning or value ‘in its own right’. If it has a value, this is because it has been given it ‘as a gift' by someone who values.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  has a similar story.The South Indian monkey trap is an age old method for catching live monkeys. It is used in the novel to illustrate the concept of value rigidity in human beings.

Here is how it works as a monkey trap.

It consists of a coconut hollowed out from one end and chained to a stake in the ground. Some sweet rice is placed inside the coconut. The hole in the coconut is big enough for a monkey to put its hand in and grab the rice, but too small for it to remove its fist with the sweet rice.

Curiously, there is no physical barrier preventing a monkey from escaping this trap; there is only a mental barrier.

The Monkeys’ inability to reevaluate rice in the context of their new circumstances costs them their freedom. Will the monkey learn that it has to let go of the rice in order to regain its freedom?

We as human beings have our own ‘sweet rice’ which can prevent us from achieving more freedom.

We as human beings have our own ‘sweet rice’ which can prevent us from achieving more freedom.


“We as human beings have our own ‘sweet rice’ which can prevent us from achieving freedom or success.”

Is a more appropriate fit imho. 

I like it.

@"Wage" Welcome to OPF! Please introduce yourself in the introductions section. :)

There are the convenient truths of emotions, the truths fabricated with the help of the intellect (i.e. reasoned truths) ,the truths which are deducted from the belief in, or to prove an objective/absolute reality. There are traditional truths, religious truths, and many more truths smudging the mirror.

Yet there is the truth of Selfrealisation – everything the same; everything distinct* - vast emptiness; nothing holy.*

*Zen quotes

We can often cling to our preconceived notions of truth, so much so that we can be blinded to the truth.

A great Zen example of this is when a man loses his home in a fire and finds a charred body which he takes to be his son and so he grieves for his son. One day, a few months later, there is a knock at the door and they claim to be his son. His son was kidnapped by bandits in the fire and he managed to escape. His father will not answer the door, convinced he has the body of his son who he has grieved for and mourned, his real son turns away and he loses his son forever.


Great post. The lack of information can be conceived as a blindfold to the mind's eye. Its normal to consider that the more information you have, the more of a better outcome one can come up with. But its not enough if you don't understand what you are "seeing." I believe we find our "truths" when we are satisfied with the outcome of a situation based on our models we obtain through experience. In addition, one could use beliefs, past emotions, rules, and preferences.

Welcome to OPF @"Intellectus"