{"id":812,"date":"2005-11-05T00:53:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-05T00:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/life-insanity-after-insanity-well-maybe-sanity-after-all\/"},"modified":"2005-11-05T00:53:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-05T00:53:00","slug":"life-insanity-after-insanity-well-maybe-sanity-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/life-insanity-after-insanity-well-maybe-sanity-after-all.html","title":{"rendered":"Life: insanity after insanity.  Well, maybe sanity after all"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I have to laugh a bit, but it seems like now that my dissertation is done and I should be relaxing, all I do is work! But in a sense it is more of a <span style=\"font-style: italic\">fun<\/span> kind of work\u2026 but then my dissertation had its fun too.<\/p>\n<p>Amongst my recent readings, a poem called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.woodmoorvillage.org\/2005\/11\/tea.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Tea<\/span><\/a>, posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.woodmoorvillage.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Woodmore Village<\/a>, was especially delicious.<\/p>\n<p>I also read (1997)  <a href=\"http:\/\/ccbs.ntu.edu.tw\/FULLTEXT\/JR-PHIL\/siderit.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Buddhist reductionism<\/a> (mentioned on my last post). Zen Unbound says he\u2019ll have a look, \u201cwearing my golf shoes and carrying a dictionary.\u201d I would suggest waders and a machete. After reading it, I probably wouldn\u2019t suggest it to anyone outside of philosophy and\/or Buddhist studies. (If you have a look, let me know what you think.) I had to jump to the dictionary and the <a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy<\/a> several times to figure out what was happening. That said, he does convince me that the arguments in the other article ((1993) <a href=\"http:\/\/ccbs.ntu.edu.tw\/FULLTEXT\/JR-PHIL\/james1.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">THE NO-SELF THEORY: HUME, <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>BUDDHISM<\/a>, AND PERSONAL IDENTITY<\/a>) are wrong \u2013 so it\u2019s important.  Perhaps I\u2019ll post a summary down the road.<\/p>\n<p>The Hegel test went ok, I survived it at least.  It only had three questions, but here is the second one:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span>Carefully discuss the psychological\/phenomenological\/ontological\/social dynamic that Hegel is depicting in the \u201cmaster-slave\u201d parable? (sic) How does this dynamic play itself out within the more determinate context that is presented in \u201cThe Spiritual Animal Kingdom\u201d (i.e. \u201cthe bourgeois zoo\u201d)? How would you assess Hegel\u2019s arguments?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The other two questions were similar. I\u2019m hoping the professor has a good sense of humor, because, with time running out, I answered the last \u2018part\u2019 of this question: \u201cHegel\u2019s arguments are very, <s>good<\/s> very, <s>good<\/s> very good. Though they are not to be taken as historical exegesis in any way.\u201d [something the prof. pounded into us quite a bit]<\/p>\n<p>Other than that, though, I suppose life has been fairly calm (I\u2019m now drinking a cup of tea as per <a href=\"http:\/\/www.woodmoorvillage.org\/2005\/11\/tea.html#comment-10872445\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nacho\u2019s suggestion<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>I did teach a bit on Buddhism Thursday, but only had one student. I have the space for the next 5 weeks, and I hope more will find their way there in the future. It was a lovely experience though, this one student is my only student, or if I only have one more student in all of the next 5 weeks, I will be satisfied.<\/p>\n<p>Today I spent some time reading through a dialog\/debate between Drs. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alanwallace.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Alan Wallace<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cns.med.ucla.edu\/Bios\/MarvizonJC.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Juan Carlos Marvizon<\/a> about the nature and connections of consciousness, science, and Buddhism on a discussion list devoted to the work of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mindandlife.org\/index.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the Mind and Life Institute<\/a>. It is a fascinating crossroads (these three: consciousness, science, and Buddhism), and I hope to work in the area some day myself. Sadly, I\u2019ll be missing the HUGE conference going on next week devoted to the topic, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.investigatingthemind.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Investigating the Mind<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Suggested reading:  \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccr.jussieu.fr\/varela\/human_consciousness\/article01.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Neurophenomenology : A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem<\/a>\u201d \u2013 as much for me (I haven\u2019t read it yet) as for anyone  else.   I <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Think<\/span> this is more readable than the \u201cBuddhist Reductionism\u201d article I mentioned before, but don\u2019t hold me to that.  But I <span style=\"font-style: italic\">think<\/span> it will be equally important (in my neck of the woods at least).<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve also been \u2018turning the pages\u2019 of <a href=\"http:\/\/ndpr.nd.edu\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Notre Dame Press<\/a> book reviews (surprised by both how informative book reviews can be and how little I know about most of the topics that people devote whole books to, for instance \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/ndpr.nd.edu\/review.cfm?id=3641\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">The Evidence for the Top Quark: Objectivity and Bias in Collaborative Experimentation<\/a>\u201c.  Sheesh.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-113118175184461056?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have to laugh a bit, but it seems like now that my dissertation is done and I should be relaxing, all I do is work! But in a sense it is more of a fun kind of work\u2026 but then my dissertation had its fun too. Amongst my recent readings, a poem called Tea, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Life: insanity after insanity. Well, maybe sanity after all<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have to laugh a bit, but it seems like now that my dissertation is done and I should be relaxing, all I do is work! 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But in a sense it is more of a fun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/life-insanity-after-insanity-well-maybe-sanity-after-all.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Buddhist Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-11-05T00:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-113118175184461056?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/life-insanity-after-insanity-well-maybe-sanity-after-all.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/life-insanity-after-insanity-well-maybe-sanity-after-all.html\",\"name\":\"Life: insanity after insanity. 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