Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 10:57:48 -0500 (EST)
From: George Free <aw570-AT-freenet.toronto.on.ca>
Subject: Re: The Return of the Real


On Thu, 5 Dec 1996 BestPoet-AT-aol.com wrote:

> Oh, I think I see what you mean. I was confused at first, because I don't
> think consciousness is a separate "thing" from perception. Are you saying can
> we just be without having to pee all over everything? And what about the
> reverse: can we see stuff without letting the stuff seize us, mark us, claim
> us?

	Interestingly, this is the goal of Buddhist and some other 
traditions of meditation practice. In Buddhism, there is a distinction 
between direct perception (consciousness) of things and our tendency to 
interpret in terms of "ego," that is, in terms of whether things are 
perceived as good, bad or indifferent to us. Through meditation practice, 
the practioner can learn to "let go" of the overlay of ego 
interpretations (not that they disappear exactly, but they don't have as 
much of a hold over us) and experience things directly. Just be with things.
	I think a lot of avant-garde art (at least the genuine stuff) has
this same quality of training the mind. A lot of artists in the 60s
observed the similarity between some avant-garde art and Zen Buddhism, for
example. Now we have the Tibetan traditions as well. 

> 
> >It's just that Xmas season making the full obscenity of capitalist-type
> desirousness evident that's talkin here.
> 
> I'm always amazed at how I can be walking down the street perfectly complete
> and suddenly pass a store window (especially computer stores or music stores)
> and suddenly a desire arises and I feel incomplete. Damn. I've gotten good at
> turning the volume down on that, because I'd hate to give up walking down the
> street. But in some sinister way, it seizes me. I'd love to just stand in
> front of the window, point to the thing and scream "Want! Want! Want!" Yeah,
> it's beginning to look a lot like Xmas. Everywhere I go.
> 
	According to the Buddhist perspective, as I understand it, it is 
very good to just watch your thoughts like this. Don't condemn them as 
bad, just observe them. Its just part of walking down the street I guess. 
Maybe its a street performance. A lot of art seems to involve adopting a 
sort of "detached" perspective, in which we just observe everything 
that arises without moralizing or judging in one way or the other.

		cheers,

		George Free		aw570-AT-torfree.net
		Toronto, Ontario
		Canada



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