I\u2019m in the ABD stage (All But Dissertation), meaning it\u2019s all on me now. To just sit, focus, and write.<\/p>\n
There is the constant tug of \u201cmore reading\u201d and random internet stuff, and that\u2019s just when I\u2019m actually here<\/span>, at the writing place\u2026 Beyond is a whole world of distractions and pleasures just calling out, well within grasp.<\/p>\n And yet there is an ever-clear sense in which we might say that setting all of that aside and focusing on the thesis is a duty<\/span>. A duty not in the sense of puritanism \u2013 but in the sense of knowing that it is what is in accord with my very nature\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n That sounds a bit odd perhaps. Maybe quoting Ch\u00f6<\/a>gyam Trungpa\u2019s<\/a> teaching on v\u012brya<\/i><\/a> (thanks to Danny<\/a> for sending it to me) will help:<\/p>\n Whenever a person practices virya, he finds delight in it, becuase it is not based in painfully going on and on, but it is a way of seeing the joyous element, of seeing that energy does not have to be forced but that it develops spontaneously. This happens by not regarding things as a duty in the puritanical sense but doing them because one has already established the connection between the action and one\u2019s being.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So I find what connects me, this me of the ego perhaps, to the greater me, or not-me\/emptiness if you want to be all Buddhisty about it. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a matter of separating out what the little-me, the ever-distracted, pleasure-seeking me from the greater me or selflessness which is my highest potential. In one paper I\u2019m reading now, Kant vs Eudaimonism<\/span><\/a>, by Allen W. Wood, we find Kant saying:<\/p>\n \u201cThis difference of the principle of happiness from that of morality is not therefore an opposition between them, and pure practical reason does not require that we should renounce the claims on happiness; it requires only that we should take no account of them whenever duty is in question\u201d (KpV 5:93). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s basically the same thing. That\u2019s why Kant and Buddhism<\/a> is what I\u2019m writing my thesis on. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Kant\u2019s principle of happiness is essentially what Buddhism would call tanha <\/span>(though I still have to get through this part of Dave W\u2019s unreasonably-expenseve-morally-required-to-be-out-in-paperback-soon<\/a> book, that\u2019s for tomorrow), the all too human thirsting for objects or experiences in the world. The principle of morality is that elusive <\/span>other<\/span> source of motivation and energy in our lives<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/h1>\n
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