to you
it’s the world,
your world,
a kind of
definition
but one day
you will know
it cannot
define you
or even love
(Originally published 22nd November 2013)
Author: Warren Tang
I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.
lucien freud
they sat for you
waited for you
craved for
your attention
as much as
those numberless
lovers did
that was
your other art —
seduction
and now
they tell their stories
about your genius
and their pains
among other things
(Originally published 14th October 2013)
sand dune
the rain has stopped for you
as you lie there gleaming white
beneath the once more ancient sun
across my wide-field of vision
and people walk all over you
like men in gulliver but still
you lay there lazy
under the strange
grey summer sky of
two thousand thirteen
our day’s trek a daze trek
daughter and son
climb the steepest
part of you while we take
the easy route up
your naked young leg
perfect for black & white art
sexy as the grains
of your worn down
washed up pristine earth
Karate #haiku revised
Children trade punches
As parents trade gossip
In the stifling gym heat
walking with the dog
i walk the path
that many have walked
for a millennium
watched over
by the green life
the network
beneath my soles
the quiet over sphere
the pulsing
under the surface
connecting but
separating us
all at once
led by my dog yet
constrained by my lead
i am now convinced
she knows infinitely more
about the world than me
via negativa, via positiva
The obvious problem overlooked with describing God is that describing what He is not is to assume there is a god (or gods) in the first place.
The problem is really the same as describing unicorn with positives. That is, a horse with a straight horn on its head. The speakers assume there exists something horse-like with something horn-like on its head-like part.
The difference is that God has no attributes to describe (which is its description) and a unicorn had attributes to describe. Either way we have described an assumed something.
Pramāna
There are six pramāna (knowledge or valid cognition) in Indian philosophy.
Pratyakṣa (perception) is the sense data, essentially your intuition (Hume’s term) or experience. In Buddhism there are six senses – visual, aural, scent, pallet, tactile, and mind. Each have their corresponding “objects” – sight, sound, fragrance, taste, touch, and mind-object. Perception may correspond to sensation in psychology and not processed content.
Anumāna (inference) is similar to logic. One thing causes another by being inferred.
Upamāna (comparison and analogy) is to link two different unrelated situations or objects through similarity. This may include simile and metaphor.
Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances) is implication by knowing the consequences of one action to another. Unlike anumāna it is long term and not immediate.
Anupalabdi (non-perception; negative cognitive proof) is the affirmation of the absence of the positive situation.
Śabda (reliance on past reliable testimony) is the reliance on past evidence given by others.
Buddhism, under Tibetan Buddhism system, recognizes that only perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) as valid. All else are denied. This is interesting considering that the Buddhist sutras are taken to be sacred texts. On this count we must wonder how the rejection of śabda works here.
kawabata
your life in forty volumes
shows you had your art
from almost the very beginning
it only takes one word
an adjective perhaps
or an emotive one
to change the meaning
of the work, to give it
a nuance not found otherwise
be it a few pages or a hundred
unmistakably it was always there
and forty volumes later
you have had enough
… faith or none
I am rather curious of the grandnarrative that when people of faith (whatever that means) talk about having faith or none, it somehow assumes that faith is the default, and none is the choice one deliberately makes.
True, most people do not make a choice, that is, their religion is given to them by birth. Bit that is assuming religion is the default mode to start.
This narrative is kind of forcing to say that I believe there is no god or gods. Often one makes the mistake and says ‘I don’t believe in God’. The former rejects the concept of god or gods (hence there is no god or gods). The latter rejects existent god or gods.
The misconception of Buddhist suffering
The Buddha said life is suffering (dukkha). Suffering is the condition of unsatisfactoriness. Immediate pain and sadness is of course suffering. But in happiness, in avoidance of pain and sadness, we are still in the condition of suffering.
To understand this and to change one’s mindset one can end suffering or end the illusion of suffering. True “happiness” is not temporal happiness but a seemingly transcends time and space. By extension even this true happiness is illusionary. Nonetheless we must pursue it as if it is there even though it is not there.
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