“We’re all original copies.”

“Mediate on your unconscious bias.”

As a mother, my mind belongs to my children. Their needs consume me. The unquestionable love that exists is worth all of attention’s devotion. I also experience impatience due to a draw towards something else. Why would anything else even matter? Because of Philosophy’s seductive call. Like a magnet it attracts my attention. What makes philosophy so irresistible? I wonder…

I’d like to ask Philosophress Iris Murdoch, whether attention equals time and time attention?

is attention ó time ?

                “[…] if we consider what the work of attention is like, how continuously it goes on, and how imperceptibly it builds up structures of value round about us, we shall not be surprised that at crucial moments of choice most of the business of choosing is already over.” Iris Murdoch*

How much do ingrained patterns determine our choices? Can patterns be reimagined? How can new patterns result from the limitations of old ones? Where does yoga fit in all this? Does it represent a bridge between perceptions, yoking the old with the new, the present with potential, the past with the future?

The yoga professor spoke about neural patterns. My thoughts as a woman drifted to the realm of the unlucky patterns with patriarchy. And patriarchy’s unfortunate patterns with women. A relationship characterized by bad luck. How sad. For, parent-child (society-individual, government-community etc.) relations can be unbelievably soulful and happy, characterized by unconditional love. Lucky relations are an ancient pattern. Why break it? It is wiser, kinder, and better for everybody and the world, to care for the naturally healthy human relations, that have ensured our evolution over millions of years. Care for them. Before they break. Due to war, greed, elitism and such. We want to nurture our inter-human relations and the world with kindness, attention**, and care. No matter how fleeting. Like we’ve done for millions of years. For, if we terrestrial creatures fall out of balance, disaster can be the result. Yes, disasters exist without the human hand. Precisely in those cases it is of utmost importance to stick together. To live on thanks to kindness, care, love, community and cooperation. Knowing full well that we inter-are together with the world.

Yoga repatterns body and mind. Of course, I still consider body to be mind and mind to be body. However, I consider a beyond the idiosyncratic body-mind complex, which is what I attempt to express with the word “mind” in “yoga repatterns body and mind.” A collective consciousness, perhaps. Or, a subtle mind, as Buddhists may call it, which I understand to be a kind of universal awareness, independent of one particular point of view, incorporating perceptions beyond.

Communication is key. I love how a yoga teacher interpreted “sangha” *** as “discussion”. Is dialogue**** not the highest philosophical value amongst men*****? We can discuss what we understand communication to be, for it surely must not be limited merely to words.

Intellectualism 1

Don’t do it!
Don’t play intellectual games!
Says Vipassana Master S.N. Goenka.
But, Goenka,
I do like to play.

Can Dharma, too,
be played?

Does play have to be *bad* (undesirable, undisciplined)?

I realize that philosophy cannot be rushed. Long winding roads through nets of being. Demanding attention. Phenomena. Questions. Riddles. Problems. Why? Who knows.

Philosophical Pairs

Edith Stein & Edmund Husserl
Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger
Elizabeth Anscombe & Ludwig Wittgenstein
Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre
Harriet Taylor Mill & Stuart Mill
Diotima & Socrates

Did Simone de Beauvoir ever fry Sartre an egg?

Another matter preoccupies my thinking mind. I haven’t had the energy to write Geshe on X. Last week I was consumed by bloody biological monthly hell. Training was minimal. No Ashtanga. The yoga prof’s intensely isometric approach is quite the workout. It has a very holistic effect on the body. Muscle fatigue everywhere to the subtlest. Strengthening. Acid mood. Will I ever have trained enough to endure without discomfort? Or is there another way altogether necessary to approach the unpleasant side of phenomena? I hear the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee did isometric training. I wonder if ever anyone has trained as intensely as he. Maybe the legendary body builder Ronnie Coleman. Maybe many humans more throughout history and herstory. But I am only an ordinary nexistentialist, a philosophress exploring more than just mind-physique. I am an ordinary woman with weird ass cycles. I’ll tell you what demands great attention: sex. I make the mistake of giving in to lust at the expense of much energy repeatedly. My feminine orgasmic desire pushing shamelessly for another and another one, just one more. It’s deliciously exhausting. What’s the alternative? Celibacy? Sacrifice sex for another promise? Celibacy does appear to be trending amongst the population, according to social media. I guess, you don’t have to join a monastery. All I can say is there are times for celibacy, and there are times for sex.

Anyway, Geshe wrote on X:

“If we first establish peace within our minds by training in spiritual paths, outer peace will come naturally; but if we do not, world peace will never be achieved, no matter how many people campaign for it.” (July 20^th)

Is that the only way? Does every individual mind have to establish peace before the world can know itself peaceful? Are there no bridges, no alternatives, no intermediate strategies to work towards collective peace? Can delusions be navigated peacefully?

Today Geshe Kelsang Gyatso wrote:

“It is very important to be able to distinguish unpeaceful states of mind from peaceful states. States of mind that disturb our inner peace, such as anger, jealousy, and desirous attachment, are called ‘delusions’. These are the principal causes of all suffering.”

Sex disturbs my peaceful state – kind of. I suppose sex would fall under the category of desirous attachment? Sex can make me jealous, too. And even angry. Thus, is sex a delusion? Or is sex a phenomenon that is afflicted by delusions? Sex can cause suffering, such as physical fatigue. Amongst other things. But if it is not a delusion, what is sex? Sex can also be fulfilling and peaceful, exciting and serene, fun and blissful. Sex is also ancient and quite specific.

So, do we have to fear a terrible end of the world or a wheel of perpetual suffering, unless every single mind has established individual peace? Is there another way to care for the world of which all individuals are part?

And, how to establish personal peace? Through meditation and other psychophysical practices and training techniques? Is training everything though? 

I must be desperately in love. I’ve been cooking very salty lately. I learned in Germany that cooking salty is a sign of being in love. In love with whom? Why, in love with Philosophy, of course!

*****

Männlicher Feminist 1 –

Er: Wenn die Menschheit untergeht, dann als Familie.

Masculine Feminist 1 -

He: If humanity sinks, the ship takes down captain and crew.

El Feminista Masculino 1 –

Si la humanidad se chinga, se va a la fregada toda la familia.

 

Männlicher Feminist 2 –

Er: Die menschlichen Wellen die man reitet…

 

Masculine Feminist 3 –

She: Can we fuck it out?

Männlicher Feminist 3 –

Sie: Können wir darüber ficken?

La Feminista Masculina 3 –

Ella: ¿cogemos?

*****

Cartoon Prayer 8 –

Forgive me, Father,
For I have
no time for cruelty.
For, I will die.
Would you know?
They say you’re eternal…

 

 

*citation in: The Philosopher Queens edited by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting (2020). p 109.
** consideration, mindfulness, understanding, respect, time, compassion, empathy, sympathy, et cetera…
*** “sangha”: Sanskrit. “association, coming together” in Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by B.K.S. Iyengar. 2002. Thorsons, London.
**** conversation, exchange of ideas, etc.
***** humankind