aesthesis

although this was only the first lecture, it exceeded my expectations greatly and really blew me out of the water a bit because i did not expect it be like it was.

i have titled this entry "aesthesis" because i felt a bit like i experienced the kind of aesthetic experience you mentioned in today's lecture. it was a sense of deep relief/fulfillment at knowing that these questions that had been floating around in my mind, these ideas that i pondered which did not yet have a name, were things that others studied, and thought about in great detail.

this sensation was accompanied by a feeling of tension, because there was so many associations that came to mind which i had to hold back. had this been a conversation between just the instructor and myself, i would have been able to discuss for hours.

one thing that really resonated with me was this idea that science has become "hyperthrophied" in the current age. it's a belief that i had for a while, but the concepts overviewed in this lecture put definitions and names it. it is regretable that Logos, rationalism has become the only narrative of legitimacy. an example of this that i noticed is how mindfulness, yoga, and other meditative practices became popular in the west: they only took root after the health benefits were scientifically proven. one specific example is yoga nidra, which is now making rounds in the west as "NSDR", or "non-sleep deep rest", which is what yoga nidra was called by the study which popularized it.

this alludes to a greater trend which a lot of buddhists of asian heritage in the west take issue with. Buddhism is taking root in the west, but only the "secular" parts. in fact, there are groups of mostly white buddhists who specifically claim to practice a "secular buddhism". which means discarding all the idea of the hells, the heavenly realms, the divinity of the Buddha, the other cosmic Buddhas, prayer, etc. Essentially, they have discarded all the mythos.

Zen Buddhism gained a foothold in the west for a similar reason. it was attractive from a secular viewpoint because it seemed to discard all the "religious nonsense" in favor of a more philosophical approach. but this is a very modern western understanding of the place that zen occupies in Buddhist tradition. i could write at length about this idea as well, but i do not want to digress too much, and i do not actually like writing about zen, or zen buddhism. which is because, in zen, it is understood that language is a pollution of the truth. an interesting contrast to Heidegger's "language is the house of Being".

but this western approach, while not objectively correct or incorrect in my view, takes meditation, Buddhism, mindfulness, etc. in the wrong way. it is not simply a way to cope with the demands of live in postmodern society, to "clear your mind" after a stressful workday. it is not a mental health tool. it is rather a practice which was originally designed to guide Buddhists towards Buddhahood, liberation from suffering, a liberation from the suffering caused by impermanence.

although my family was from Korea, and has some Buddhist heritage, i did not actually become a 'buddhist' until January of last year, nearly one year ago. and it was a couple weeks after i began study when i experienced my first "aesthetic" experience while reading a book about zen. since then, i consider myself a practicing buddhist, because buddhism "works" for me, although i also believe that such labels ("buddhist", "buddhism", "buddha") are not necessary when it comes to the pursuit of truth, and liberation from suffering, which is something that is fundamental to people of all religions, as well as those that do not espouse a religion. b


until recently, i thought that the west was very spiritually deficient in comparison to the east, and i thought that it had always been that way in some sense. but i was pleasantly surprised to learn that through the philosophical and cultural history of the west, there have been thinkers, religious scholars, and others who have studied the spiritual, "Mythos", if you will, in a similar way. and that there exist people today who are devoted to this study even today.