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From: rpw3@fortune.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: DESCARTES (first in a series) - (nf)
Message-ID: <2270@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Jan-84 04:04:45 EST
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Posted: Fri Jan 13 04:04:45 1984
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fortune!rpw3    Jan 12 21:35:00 1984

[ A long serious comment, to set up a terrible philosophical pun... ]

The problem with Descartes is he didn't quite go far enough in looking
for his primordial causes. Descartes said "I think, therefore I am".
But to say "I think" PRESUMES the existence of a solid, perservering
"I" who thinks. From that presumption, he then "proves" his conclusion,
which is the presumption itself! (It's like Thomas Aquinas, but using
"I" instead of "God".) In the vocabulary of a previous note, the theory
of "I" is taken as a correct model without ever being tested against
evidence.

How might one look for "evidence"? Certain schools suggest a kind of
simple meditation, wherein one merely notices whatever goes on in
one's mind.  One of the results reported by practitioners is that the
identification between thoughts and "I" is not all that solid. There
are gaps where there is nothing. Or sometimes instead of thinking your
thoughts, your thoughts seem to think you.  Osel Tendzin (a student of
Trungpa Rinpoche) once said in a talk (published in "Buddha in the Palm
of Your Hand"):

	"When we look at our life in a straightforward way, we see
	that everything is marked by impermanence, or transitoriness.
	Anything that is born will eventually die. The phenomenal world
	and our bodies are subject to birth, life, death, and decay.
	It is the same with our thoughts and emotions. We feel happy
	and that lasts for a while, and then that happiness might change
	into sadness or depression. We cannot even hang on to our belief
	in consciousness as an eternal principle. If we look carefully,
	we see that even consiousness is purely a collection of mental
	events that having been brought together, eventually disperse.

	"Since the experience of impermanance is all-pervasive, there
	is nothing we can grasp and hold on to and say, 'This lasts forever.'
	We are left with a sense of groundlessness. Because we are confused,
	we base our perceptions on a idea [theory] of ourselves as a permanent
	entity. That so-called permanent entity is known as 'ego'.  But there
	is no permanent self or ego -- there are simply mental events, which
	in themselves are impermanent.

	"...According to the Buddhist teachings, that perpetuation of
	suffering need not happen. We do not have to create boundaries
	in order to define ourselves. It is possible to look at our lives
	in a more straightforward way. We can experience impermanence,
	egolessness, and suffering simply, without having to create a
	fortification called 'I'."

When someone at another talk challenged the notion of egolessness,
quoting "I think, therefore I am", his answer was:

	"You think you think, therefore you think you are.
	The other way is putting Descartes before the horse."

Rob Warnock

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