A Divinely Way to Philosophy, Vol. 1 E-Book

Timo Schmitz

• Herausgeber: Graf Berthold Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 1085

Beschreibung

This book contains selected articles in English language by Timo Schmitz, which were reviewed and (if necessary) updated for this edition. They include mainly political and philosophical topics, but also display his seek for God and understanding the Creation. In the first volume, he presents his insights on Buddhism and his culture critique from 2016, an introduction into Logics from 2017, questions concerning whether God exists and the limits of creation from 2018, and an introduction into his Judeo-Buddhist philosophy from 2019.

The articles included in this selection are among others: "'Right Intention' a.k.a. 'Right Thought' in Buddhism – From emotional theory to practice" (2016), "A modified version of Metta – from the perspective of a practitioner" (2016), "The Storehouse-Consciousness – How does it work and why does it affect us?" (2016), "From the creation of the world to the eschatology in Buddhism" (2016), "The Different Forms of Religion" (2017), "What is Logic?" (2017), "The dilemma of natural law in an organised society" (2017), "The Red Banner philosophy as religious legitimation of the DPRK political apparatus in civil life" (2017), "Overview of the very basics of Logic" (2017), "If God exists, then He exists through you" (2018), "What is Yogacara?" (2018), "Plotinus' triad as actual experience" (2018), "On Plato's Good and the tripartite soul" (2019), "The nature of reality in Plato's Republic and Eastern Religion" (2019), "Short Introduction Into My Judeo-Buddhism" (2019).

Leseprobe

Content

‘Right Intention’ a.k.a. ‘Right Thought’ in Buddhism – From emotional theory to practice (2016)

Impermanent Reality – a philosophical story (2016)

Preserve the books you have! (2016)

A modified version of Metta – from the perspective of a practitioner (2016)

The Storehouse-Consciousness – How does it work and why does it affect us? (2016)

The disappearance of languages – myth or reality? (2016)

“The Flower Girl” in a socio-critical context of 1920s Korea (2016)

Revata and the Ghost Story – A symbol for the question of who we are! (2016)

How Chinese politeness is misunderstood in the West (2016)

The analogical meaning behind Chalabhinna – the ‘Special Knowledge’ in Buddhism (2016)

Is it that bad to live in kamadhatu? – A Buddhist perspective focussing on two sides of the coin (2016)

The meaning behind the story of Suddhipanthaka and Mahapanthaka – A nice Buddhist allegory (2016)

From the creation of the world to the eschatology in Buddhism (2016)

Some thoughts that I like to entitle ‘Dreaming of a better world, dreaming of a better life’, but don’t dare to (2016)

The myth of culture – reloaded. Examples of its inexistence and borders of my thesis (2016)

Implications of the absense of culture for the usage of its term (2016)

Is life nothing than a dream? – Consequences of Solipsism (2016)

Comparison between the governmental systems of Germany and China (2016)

The main task of Chechen ethics and their contemporary importance (2016)

λέγω – the connection of saying and reading in Ancient Greek (2016)

A Critical Review of Kim Jong Il’s demand on good literature and his image on literature in general (2016)

A critical look on Juche philosophy (2015/ 2016) – Full revision: 2019

Sartre: Human-being as a project (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Spinoza and Modern Pantheism (Ethica, De Deo) (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Spinoza: Essence and Existence (Ethica, De natura et origine mentis) (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Nietzsche’s “God is dead” (2016) – Full revision: 2019

On Dadaism (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Philo of Alexandria: Middle Platonism and Hellenistic Judaism (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Diogenes of Sinope: An Anti-Platonian Cynic (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Fumiko Kaneko (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Plato on Courage (Laches) (2016) – Full revision: 2019

Vietnamese folk religion (2016) – Full revision: 2019

The liveliness of the universe from a philosophical perspective (2017)

The Different Forms of Religion (2017)

What is Logic? (2017)

The basic form of a syllogism (2017)

The junction of two propositions and their validity (2017)

Formalisation of Logical Relations in Atomic Sentences (2017)

The meaning of life and death in “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (2017)

The meaning of loneliness in “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (2017)

An assumed meaning of the title in “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (2017)

Argumentative Analogy versus Figurative Analogy (2017)

The dilemma of natural law in an organised society (2017)

The human nature in the face of God (2017)

εὐδαιμονία as τέλος of Ancient Greek philosophy (2017)

The εὐδαιμονία in the Roman Empire around the Birth of Christ in the Stoic School as seen through Seneca (2017)

Preliminary considerations for scientific working (2017)

The Red Banner philosophy as religious legitimation of the DPRK political apparatus in civil life (2017)

The religious symbolism of the Red Banner movements in DPRK media (2017)

Short summary of the dialogues between Socrates and Gorgias and Socrates and Polos in Plato’s Gorgias (2017)

Class Logic and Truth-functional sentences (2017)

Singular terms and their identity (2017)

General terms and existence (2017)

A very short introduction into African Philosophy and their main streams (2017)

The New Constructivist Communism in Short, Part 1: The Political Attitude (2017)

The New Constructivist Communism in Short, Part 2: The Nature of God (2017)

The New Constructivist Communism in Short, Part 3: Is it really a man’s world? (2017)

Categorical propositions and hypothetical propositions (2017)

Overview of the very basics of Logic (2017)

Georgian mythology (2017) – Fully revised: 2019

If God exists, then He exists through you (2018)

Shuitian Fo （水天佛）- Mantra, Function and Origin (2018)

Summary and Interpretation of the Amitabha Sutra, Section 1-3 (2018)

What is Yogacara? (2018)

Summary of important basic Buddhist terms (2018)

Causing the first cause: The creation of such a perfect world shall be the result of many accidents? (2018)

On the unity with God (2018)

Tohu-wa-bohu as first substance(s)? (2018)

Making the unreal becoming real in this world – Avicenna on fictional beings and creational problems of the Sefer Yetzira (2018)

Differences and commonalities between the first half of Plato’s Timaeus and the Sefer Yetzira on their cosmological accounts of the beginning (2018)

Plotinus’ triad as actual experience (2018)

Understanding the Soul in Judaism and Islam – Converting the terms correctly (2018)

The Creation and the relation to the Creator in a nutshell (2018)

Exploring justice through a philosophical dialogue (2018)

“Socrates was a sorcerer”, Grimaldi says (2019)

On Plato’s Good and the tripartite soul (2019)

The nature of reality in Plato’s Republic and Eastern Religion (2019)

Moral debt and guilty conscience (Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality) (2019)

Arguments against Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (2019)

Introduction into the idea of Philosophy (2019)

Short Introduction Into My Judeo-Buddhism (2019)

‘Right Intention’ a.k.a. ‘Right Thought’ in Buddhism – From emotional theory to practise

When doing self-study on Buddhism, the second section of the Noble Eightfold Path samma-sankappa, which is translated as ‘right intention’ or ‘right thought’, is an interesting challenge. It suggests that thoughts and feelings have to be separated to be aware of the impermanence of everything to be able to gain mindfulness and awareness. It is easier said than to be done. We can easily say, “hey, let’s separate the two things”, but in practise it is quite difficult at first. So we have to know, what is the source of our feelings? Where do our thoughts come from? What’s the relation between thoughts and feelings?

When we talk about affective feelings, we can talk of emotions and moods, which is described very often in psychology. Non-affective feelings should be left aside here, because they are neutral, and therefore do not inject a certain assessment without an emotive stimulus.

Modern study of emotions goes back to William James who published a theory on the creation of emotions in 1884. While traditionally, people believed that a situation triggers an emotion which leads to a reaction inside the body, James suggested that the situation triggers a reaction which then leads to an emotion. The word emotion here is defined as perception of a physical change. If this is true, every kind of a specific emotion has to have a different physical intensity, which means that every emotion, such as anger, fear, pride or prudency has to have specific physical patterns by which we can differentiate between them (Meyer, Reisenzein & Schützwohl, 2001, p. 143). James’ student Cannon criticised the theory, by proving that the same visceral changes are able to cause different emotions (Meyer, Reisenzein & Schützwohl, 2001, p. 154). At the same time, Cannon criticized that visceral changes are far too slow to be the source of any feeling. Several tests with animals were conducted, in which it was proved that even after the separation of the viscera with the central nervous system (CNS), cats and dogs were able to show anger or happiness to the outside world. Meyer et al. (2001) indicate that James only stated that visceral reactions are important for the experience of emotions and not for their expression, and we do not know whether the animals were able to experience the feelings after the surgical intervention, even further, we even do not know for sure whether animals have feelings at all (p. 158).

Several theories have assumed a post-cognition of emotions, which means that we can feel an emotion at the moment which goes back to a previous event, and we use to interprete it on our situation in which we are now. Zillmann conducted several experiments on this theory, suggesting that sexual excitement might cause aggression (1971), and disgust might be an indicator on humor (1979). In Zillmann’s book ‘Connections between Sexuality and Aggression’, he describes the experimentation in which people were triggered aggressively, after a sexual clip was shown and the excitedness was investigated in a pre-test (p. 208). Those who saw the film clip tended to deliver stronger electroshocks to the annoyer than those who saw an aggressive film. This ‘sex-aggression transfer’ was one of the major milestones for the ‘excitation-transfer theory’ which states that the excitation from one stimulus might lead to the excitatory response to another stimulus. According to Zillmann, this does only work in case that the person is not aware of the preceding situation as cause.

Despite modern scientific research on emotion, the issue has been a matter of debate in philosophy since millenia. As philosophers such as Socrates focussed on reason, emotion was always put in the background and even was regarded as a threat to reason and thus a danger for philosophy (Solomon, 2008). Aristotle rather saw the rise of emotions from the views of the world around us (Strongman, 2003, p.10). However, we can clearly say that the credo in antiquity was the opposition of feeling and thinking, not only in the Western world, but also Confucianism mainly focusses on the fulfillment of duties, rather than on individual feelings.

Another fact is the ability to regulate emotions. We can show emotions, but we do not have to. On the other hand, emotions appear because they want to be felt. The goal of ‘right intention’ is not to suppress feelings or to reason that feelings are unnecessary, but rather that we are aware of our feelings and know where they come from. The next step is to be aware that our feelings and thoughts are often mixed up, and that we can think, judge and reason without emotional affection, if we do the separation of feelings and thoughts correctly.

If we ask for the need why we should separate our feelings and thoughts, it is evident that the mixture of feelings and thoughts trouble our view on reality. The way we see our reality depends on how we see our environment and how we think. And if we allow that feelings mix up our thinking, our view on reality can get emotionally biased, e.g. think of all those who praise how bad everything and anything is, no matter in which situation. This judgment is consorted by a feeling and even further by the qualia of the certain feeling. For instance, Schwarz & Clore (1983) tested the judgment of well-being. In the experiment, moods were induced on sunny or rainy days and people had to judge their happiness and satisfaction with their life. If they were not made aware of the environmental situation, more satisfaction appeared when being in good mood (thus on sunny days) than on bad-mood-days (rainy days). However, if the interviewee was informed about the weather, the ‘rainy day bad moods’ suddenly disappeared and the effect was eliminated. The reason for this is evident. Since life satisfaction changes at any time, people probably use the appraisal processes to evaluate their situation and therefore take the recent environmental state into consideration. If one knows that the weather is bad, one is aware that it is a bad factor for evaluating and more clear asumptions are made (like “oh, I just feel bad because of the weather, but I’m fine”). In this case, same as in Zillman’s experiments, the effects of mood manipulating only work when the subject is not aware of the manipulation.

As a consequence I assume that mindfulness can lead to more objective judgments, since we get aware of mood distractors – a very important impact of ‘right intention’ and the way towards happiness that is praised so much in Buddhist literature.

In Buddhist terminology, mindfulness is called ‘sati’ meaning lucid awareness, in the sense of “understanding of what is occuring, before and beyond conceptual and emotional classifications” (Chiesa, 2012), as well as the development of one’s own memory.

Several scientists have suggested that emotion derives from instincts and thus are instinct processes, such as McDougall (1926) or Plutchik (1980), who suggested primary and secondary emotions. Although the ideas of psychologists about the production of emotion – whether they are the response to physiological processes, cognitive processes or instincts – more or less have their points, I want to focus mainly on their regulation. Of course, this does only include non-reflexive behavior – as reflexive behavior derives from sensory information that directly goes from the thalamus to the amygdala, as LeDoux proposed.

The fact that we develop emotions, no matter where they derive from, does not imply that we are their slaves, as we can see due to ‘jealousy’. Jealousy arises if one fears losing one’s partner, mostly as a rival appears, and one wants to avoid the loss with all means. Jealousy itself is just a feeling – an affection. If we react in daily life just after affections, we will show the behavior that emotional psychologists have found. When we are angry, we start to destruct things, when we are sad, we cry, etc. But luckily, we have a regulatory system – our ratio. In daily life, affection and ratio come together and we think that the feelings that we have are ours. Indeed, they either appear as a result of physiology or cognition. So when we feel jealous, we see the danger, in our body are processes activated and we have an emotion as result. However, everybody knows that when we are angry, we can try not to hurt someone or not to scream, so we can regulate ourselves. This shows that regulation works, although suppression is no solution. If our ratio is above affection, then we can regulate it very well. We realise that due to the complex processes, an emotion appeared, and we can think, “Why do we feel the emotion?”, “Is it really necessary?”, “Is the danger that I feel really existent?”. We can control it when we separate feelings and thoughts. As Zillmann showed through his experiments, we often do not know why we feel in a certain way. Therefore, I want to emphasize, we often have feelings that do not belong to us, but are induced by others. Maybe someone makes a note on jealousy, and the next time when we are in a critical mood, the cognition tells us that we have a reason to be jealous. But as we all know, our cognition is very bad. We are even that bad in finding out the sources of our mood that it makes no sense to attribute our recent mood to any event, but thanks to the mood, we select emotions. If we are in a bad mood, we prefer to listen to bad emotions rather than to the good ones. Another point is the sensory failure that we know from Buddhism. Every human-being has its own cognition, but our senses are not objective, but subjective. This means that we construct our reality, and even further, we interprete information in our situation that is not there, but we use this information from experience. Someone who was often disappointed probably triggers jealousy very early, even in a situation where there is no reason for it – which leads to tensions in relationships. If our emotion is, as James proposed, the result of our physiological change, and if we are not good in estimating the source of our emotion, as Zillmann showed in several experiments, then our emotion is seemingly not our real emotion to our current reality. However, we often think that the recent feeling has to do with the recent situation, and we attribute feelings into a reality that does not exist as such. If we are aware of this ‘betrayal’, we use our thoughts over our feelings, and we do not mix our feelings with our thoughts. We can do this through meditation. In meditation, such as shikantaza, we are just sitting and allow all emotions and thoughts to come to our mind. We try not to suppress emotions, but to deal with them and we try to control ourselves (Schmitz, 2015). And then we try to separate them. We can also do breathing exercises, in which we relax. We try to get aware of ‘what are my thoughts’ and ‘what triggers my recent state?’ If you try to track back your emotion, you might fail, and you get aware, it is not the real emotion of your reality now. Maybe you can track back your emotion, but use your thoughts to rule over your feelings. Be aware of ‘which are my thoughts?’ and ‘which thoughts I just do have because others told me?’. In this way, if we are jealous, we first should think ‘Why am I jealous? What is the source?’.

The dissociation between heart and mind is another topic that has to be covered. In traditional Chinese thought, the heart and the mind are one, and thus when saying ‘shi yan zhi’, one might say “poetry expresses intention” or “poetry expresses emotion” (Chen Eoyang, p. 245). However, we do not need to speak of one mind as such. The dissociation gets clear when we take a look at the ‘two-mind theory’ that was introduced in the Shurangama-Sutra (compare Schmitz, 2015). This dissociation can be scientifically explained with the emotional theories. If we feel a physiological change, but we feel that our correspondent reaction is against this, then we have a conflict. This means, if our affection and our ratio is contrarious, then we have a heart-mind conflict. In contrast to classical Chinese thought, the Indians had a close brahman-atman tie, where the self is the “ultimate substrate of all being” (Venkoba Rao, 2002, p. 316). As an atman and therefore a self does not exist in Buddhism, the self can be reduced to “physical and psychological constituents and processes” (Coseru, 2009/ 2012), although they share a “general view of mental processes as hierarchical and discrete” (Coseru, 2009/ 2012) as the Brahmanical traditions. Therefore, I assume that the Shurangama Sutra – which was probably composed in China – tried to solve the problem that the Indian sutras had a different idea of mind then it was found in Chinese thought. The creation of a two-mind-system therefore probably was a result of terminological transformation, in which different systems of thoughts were syncretized (compare Schmitz, 2015).

To go back to the factor of reality in the emotional conception, I just wanted to clarify again that our reality is constructed – and actually we construct more than we even think (something that the early Yogacarins even put in a strict sense, where they doubted their own cognition, as they thought that nothing is really real and everything derives from the mind), and that we can use meditation to philosophise about our feelings and thoughts – and separate them step by step, as the Buddha taught us to go for right intention and give up wrong intention, such as ill-will and bad emotions, to attain happiness, receive happiness and give happiness and therein develop further. This can be effectively done through meditation, breathing exercises, but has to be further developed in post-meditation.

Literature

Chen Eoyang, Eugene: The transparent eye – reflections on translation, Chinese literature, and comparative poetics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

Chiesa, Alberto: The Difficulty of Defining Mindfulness – Current Thought and Critical Issues. 2012. https://www.radboudcentrumvoormindfulness.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Chiesa_2012_defining_mindfulness.pdf (retrieved 04 December 2015).

Coseru, Christian: Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 03 December 2009 (edited: 12 October 2012). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-indian-buddhism/ (retrieved on 10 March 2016).

McDougall, William: The Principal Instincts and the Primary Emotions. In: An Introduction to Social Psychology (Revised Edition). Boston: John W. Luce & Co., 1926, pp. 47-92.

Meyer, Reisenzein & Schützwohl: Einführung in die Emotionspschyologie (2. Auflage). Bern: Verlag Hans Huber, 2001.

Plutchik, Robert; Kellermann, Henry: Emotion – Theory, Research, and Experience,Vol. 1: TheoriesofEmotion. New York: AcademicPress, 1980.

Schmitz, Timo: Rationalism versus Spiritualism and Atheism versus Polytheism in Buddhism. Berlin: epubli 2015.

Schwarz, Norbert & Clore, Gerald: Mood, Misattribution, and Judgments of Well-Being – Informative and Directive Functions of Affective States. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 45 No. 3, 1983, pp. 513-523.

Solomon, Robert C.: The Philosophy of Emotions. In: Lewis, Haviland-Jones & Feldman Barrett (ed.): Handbook of Emotion (Third Edition). New York: The Guilford Press, 2008.

Strongman, K.T.: The Psychology of Emotion From Everyday Life To Theory (Fifth Edition). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

Venkoba Rao, A.: ‘Mind’ in Indian Philosophy. In: Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 44 No. 4, 2002, pp. 315-325.

Zillmann, Dolf: Connections between Sexuality and Aggression (Second Edition). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998.

Published on 10 March 2016

Impermanent Reality – a philosophical story

This text covers the thoughts that arise while looking out of a train’s window on a rainy pre-spring day.

Passing by, things are passing by, people are passing by, and we are just passing-byers. Passing by, where things arise and go down, where the mist covers the field, that comes as soon as it disappears. Rain crashing on the glass, just to drop down, making its way to an unknown destination, just like people hurrying not to get wet and yet can their hurry save them?

Passing by, just like things come and go, now I am here but in a second I leave, just like this people will leave and go their way, one time seen and then nowhere, like they never were, but still they are. They have stories from all directions, of ups and downs just like the wind. And while the wind grows, it is evident, we have to grow, but for what? And why do people always look back to what they never can be – to what they never were and to what they never will be again? Tired of circulating, tired of not moving forward, they pass by in masses. And I ask myself, this ride will be past just like everything that happened, just like this rain, just like this wind, just like this field, this biker on this bicycle track who did not see me passing by in a train and probably never will see me again – why we still hurry for something to grasp, in a world of impermanence? Why do people hurry for something that leaves them in despair? Why do they adopt? We all have our possibilities, our chances, our knowledge, our own character – all what we need is in ourselves – but yet we are too limited to see, this path, just like the track of a train, always moving faster, always moving forward, it has a destination, just as we have, but our cry for liberation, our path to happiness, we ignore.

Passing by, so many people, one day all along, I don’t know their lives, their ways, their motivation, they are running fast from point to point to go their ways – disappearing in a station’s mass.

Passing by, I see flowers on the field, the rain is slaking their thirst. Traces of the cold are left, but the snow disappeared, the landscape changed, nothing is as it was before. Are we attentive of the beautiful nature – the fog, the fields, the flowers and the small lifes that are still hiding?, but the nature feels its sore. Because so many see it while passing-by, knowing that everything arises and goes down, that everything changes in any second, that joy and pain are next to each other, and they follow their routine, their schemata, their busy life – without leaving a photo in their heart.

Published on 15 March 2016

Preserve the books you have!

During life time, we accumulate a lot of books, and some of them are on our shelf and we know we never need them anymore. However, when we clean the shelf, what shall we do with them? I think the best solution is selling them somewhere or giving them away for free, but never throw them away. Books are the soul of humanity, if you throw a book away, it is as if you throw a person away, or as if you hurt a person. I am not refering to your schooling books or personal notebooks or something, I am refering to real printed books you bought. You might think that they are a mass ware, and yes maybe now many people still have the book, but when time passes, the particular book is not printed anymore and many people who are interested in it won’t be able to read it. Maybe the book inspired your journey, why don’t you let others do the same? I even experienced myself how terrible it is if a book is not accesible anmyore, that I really want to read. Luckily, many books are digitalized now, however, it sometimes requires a lot of patience to find the digitalized version. For instance, I am interested in Turkmen language and its literature language, tribal development, dialects, etc. and thus I searched for two Russian books from the Soviet Union (ПоцелуевскийА. П.: Диалектытуркменскогоязыка, Ашхабад, 1936. ПоцелуевскийА. П.:  Основысинтаксисатуркменскоголитературногоязыка, Ашхабад, 1943.), however both books seemingly just were printed and runned one edition (or maybe two) and then never again, and for a long time it was so hard to get a copy of the book (it took me 5-6 years). Luckily now they are digitalized, but for many years it was difficult to read this good works, although this writer has a good reputation for exploring Turkmen language and is probably one of the best in his field.

And there are many other writers who wrote lots of interesting works and they put a lot of effort in it. But for what? Over 70 to 100 years later, some works are already not available anymore. It is like a soul of knowledge and wisdom vanished!

However, luckily there are people sharing old content and preserving it. For instance, someone uploaded a 1957 Soviet video about Abkhazia on the internet. Although one might classify it as Soviet propaganda video, it reveals a lot about the customs, tradition and living of the people during that time, and it helped me a lot.

Some stores even have specialized on old books, and one can buy books for a low price that were already read (I once saw a website which sold Soviet 1920s short stories and novels very cheap).

Sometimes even seemingly simple works can have a worth for science, such as the primary school book written by Korean writer Wŏn Yŏngŭi, published in 1907 to teach students Classical Chinese. This work is very unique, since all sentences were written for this very book, thus it contained completely new stuff (which is unusual for text books of Classical Chinese, as they normally mainly teach old Confucian texts). The example phrases in that book are that easy to grasp that it is often picked up in modern school books for high school students in South Korea who are interested in learning Classical Chinese today, and is even a field for science since it is designed differently than other text books of that time and even has “lessons on the history and customs of the Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese and Thai, and even two on Mohammed and Jesus” 1, which was quite unusual in patriotic Korea. Again, luckily this book is digitalized, but this example shows again how worthy a seemingly normal book might be.

Books as the soul of humanity are the most worthiest treasure that we probably have, since the understanding of the world as we know today is mostly conducted through written documents and it is logical that most of our knowledge about the past is transmitted through written works. We take up a lot from the past, but we don’t think of the future. How will anyone be able to understand our present life later, if we erase it and the bestsellers from today might be shadows in the future, simple names with the notion “his/ her works are lost”, which in fact equals a lost soul, a voice that got silent – and stays silent.

Therefore, don’t throw books away, but share them with those who want to preserve the soul of the world!

Notes

Kuiwon (

歸源

): Book Review –

蒙學漢文初階

(

몽학한문초계

) –

元泳義

(

원영의

), 23 June 2014,

https://kuiwon.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/book-review-蒙學漢文初階/

(retrieved on 24 June 2014).

Published on 18 April 2016

A modified version of Metta – from the perspective of a practitioner

Today, I want to give a brief overview on my meditation technique, a modified form of Metta, that I use to practise sometimes, but it takes some time (plan 15-30 minutes). This article is not meant to be a meditation guide, I just want to inspire you to practise loving-kindness and show you how I do it as a practitioner myself.

At first, I normally sit in my meditation posture on a soft place, e.g. my bed. After putting myself into a comfortable position, I close my eyes and concentrate on breathing. I try to control my breath and prepare for the first step. At first, I imagine myself. I am looking on myself from the outside, and I am accepting myself as I am. I think, self-acceptance is very important to strengthen one’s self-confidence. Before you can love others, love yourself. I spend some minutes on pointing out my advantages, my skills, reasons to be happy, reasons to be alive. At the same time, I accept my imperfections and forgive my own mistakes. After that, I put the ‘imagined’ self into a pleasurable environment, a spot, a place I like a lot. Now, that I am in my ‘comfort zone’, so to say, I imagine not only me, but also my family at this spot. One does not need to take the family only, but you can choose the relatives you like, and then forgive them for their mistakes, for the times they made you uncomfortable, but point out the lucky moments. Now, I add my friends to the scene. I just do the same as before, I think of their positive points, their advantages, and forgive them for the negative, for the quarrels, etc. When feeling at harmony and peace towards my most important environment (which are family and friends), then I add my enemies into the scene. At first, it is best to take one person a time, and think of why I hate the person. It is good to go into it in detail, while still trying to control breathing (not to get tensed). Then, after finding the root of my discomfort towards them, I think of their advantages, their strengths. See that these people also have good sides, so it is time to focus on them. I think it is important for all of us to deal with uncomfortable situations and even further to deal with people who give us an uncomfortable feeling, and try to see other perspectives than just our negative side that we see in them. Therefore, forgive them for their pain they gave you, for the suffering, and strengthen the good sides. Can you see that the person is just a human-being, just as you are? That person has mistakes and imperfections, just as everybody else – even you, yourself... and I, myself.

After considering this, I feel a positive attitude towards the whole scene. As next, I see where my imagined spot is placed in the world. I see how it is integrated in the world, and that there are many human-beings, animals, plants, they all live their way, and then I try to see their pain, their suffering, and embrace them. I see that I am just a small part of it, but I am an integrated part, I cannot be separated out of it.

As next, I imagine the scene again and focus on the part where I placed myself and tell myself: “I am practising loving-kindness towards myself”. Then I focus on my family and say to myself: “I am practising loving-kindness towards my family.” Next, I focus on my friends and say: “I am practising loving-kindness towards my friends.” I keep in mind to control my breath and make sure that I am not tensed or upset or let the mind wander away. Then, I focus on my enemy/ enemies and say: “I am practising loving-kindness towards my enemy.” And at least, I say: “I am practising loving-kindness towards the whole world, even the whole universe.” It is important to repeat these verses until feeling calm and relaxed (maybe one or two more times). Least, I focus again actively on breathing. After that I open my eyes, and move my body – I realize I am still there, inside the world and I never left, but I am ready to put the core of the practise into daily life.

Honestly, this description is just the way in which I do it and I do not know whether it helps you or not (or even discomforts you, who knows). However, I just do it in this way, because it helps me and affects me positively, however, I did it by trying myself. Metta itself is not an invention by me, so probably many other people maybe do it the same as I do (although I don’t know, and as I developed my ideal way through trying, I don’t know whether there is any manual or inventer who already described exactly this before). Anyways, the importance of Metta is taking the steps. Metta in its original description focusses on six steps. One shall practise loving-kindness towards oneself, a good friend, a neutral person, an enemy, altogether, and the entire universe. There are several traditional accounts as well as modern teaching varieties. The discourse on Metta in Buddhist canonical literature is conducted through the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya within the Sutta Pitaka; the Vatthupama Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya within the Sutta Pitaka; but most importantly the Metta Sutta – or Metta Sutra in Sanskrit – which is found in the Khuddakapatha within Khuddaka Nikaya in the Sutta Nipata.

My modified daily practise just puts the main core into the smallest practise unit, which means that the intensive meditation practise of loving-kindness, which has a lot of steps, is just practised in a shorter version, with the same goal – fighting arrogance, practising gentleness, and sincerity and thus reaching individual harmony and peace.

Liability Exclusion: The article describes the author’s meditation practise as narration, not as instructed guide. Therefore, the author takes no liability for any consequences or accidents that could arise through using the article’s content as instruction. Putting the described things into practise thus is done at the practitioner’s own risk.

Published on 27 May 2016

The Storehouse-Consciousness – How does it work and why does it affect us?

One of the most interesting constructions to explain human behavior in Buddhism is the alaya-vijnana, also known as storehouse consciousness. Although it is a rather hypothetical construct, it clearly explains and symbolises how the experiences of every single individual are stored and come back to life when certain cues appear.

The storehouse consciousness presumes that everybody is born with a clear (or empty) mind, thus without built-in mental knowledge, a tabula rasa, so to say. The first basis is the mind. Although it is difficult to define the mind as such, we can hypothesize that it is there. The mind consists of a ‘field in mind’, our tabula rasa. Anyways, with every experience that we make in life, a ‘seed’ (bija) is implanted (symbolically) in our mind. This seed is our experience and it can nebulize our sense for reality, if we don’t get aware of it and train our mind, or symbolically clear and clean our field in mind by transforming bad seeds into good seeds. To make clear how this storehouse-consciousness with its field and seeds works, let’s make a fictional example.

Marie is in a lucky reltionship with Richard, who recently always has to do overwork. At first, it is no problem until she finds out that he is actaully seeing another woman. After breaking up with Richard, she gets to know Howard. Howard is a kind of business career type and his job means everything to him. As Howard has to do a lot of overwork recently, Marie gets that angry one evening that when Howard comes home she shouts at him and knocks his face calling him any swear word. Let’s analyse this fictional example. When someone experiences something it is saved. In this case, the experience of an overworking man is saved as betrayal for Marie. So the first level is storage as such. Second, it stays unconscious. Marie doesn’t think of it anymore actively, but it is not forgotten. When Howard tells her that he has to do overwork it triggers a cue, which is “overworking means betrayal” in Marie’s mind and as a result she puts her mind-created reality into an actional level.

Let’s go further. Marie’s friend Sophie (who was never betrayed) meets Joe, who also has to do a lot of overwork. While Marie seeks a quarrel with Howard, Sophie stays calm towards Joe. Keep in mind, neither Howard nor Joe are betraying, they are both overworking. So both men are in the same situation, and we can even say, the whole situation is the same. So why do Marie and Sophie react differently in one and the same situation? It is because of their experience. Our mind gets dusty from experience to experience making it unable to see reality. We do not act according to the situation anymore, but we suffer from all suffrance.

As the storehouse consciousness saves everything, nothing can get lost. Everything is stored somewhere. As we know nowadays, the long-term memory has a huge capability of saving whatever we need. It can be assumed that the storage is never full, so we can always keep on learning. Anyways, to make something present in our mind at the moment, the stored information has to be transfered from the long-term to the short-term memory (a.ka. working memory). Everything that we deal with at the moment is active in the working memory and then later transfered back to the long-term memory.

However, we are not the slaves of our memory, in fact we can work on it. In meditation, we deal with our suffrance. We analyse the three poisons and how they affect us and work on ourselves. A good practise is shikantaza (although it was invented by Zen monks later and therefore is not an original practise taught by the Buddha), known as ‘just sitting’ where the practitioner deals with every thought as they come to him like a mess. While he is just sitting and doing nothing that could distract him from thinking, he then tries to put them into order by analysing – and finding out that they are harmless. We can see how thoughts come and go – and we learn that thoughts have no affections. As a result, we can separate thoughts and feelings to reach the second discipline of the Noble Eightfold Path which is called ‘Right Thought’. Through realising that thoughts have no feelings (e.g. ‘he is just doing overwork, why am I mad? Why don’t I trust him?’), we can get to know the origin and root of our suffrance. From time to time, we can see that our whole reality is just constructed with the help of our knowledge and experience that is right there in our storehouse consciousness, somewhere in our mind.

Annotation

Although the storehouse consciousness saves all our painful memory, it is not a bad thing as such. We need the storehouse consciousness, because we are born without general knowledge, so we have to save everything to be able to survive. When we see something, we can identify it as such, if we had made an experience with it before. We can identify another human-being as human-being, or even recognize a mushroom without ever having seen such a mushroom, because from all our experiences, we know what mushrooms look like and we are aware that we shall not simply eat every mushroom we see (because of probable danger).

Literature

Schmitz, Timo: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion. Berlin: Timo Schmitz, 2018.

Schmitz, Timo: Buddhism for Overthinkers. Trier: Buddha TS Publishing, 2018.

Schmitz, Timo: ‘Right Intention’ a.k.a. ‘Right Thought’ in Buddhism – From emotional theory to practise.10 March 2016.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Aus Angst wird Mut – Grundlagen buddhistischer Psychologie. Bielefeld: Theseus, 2013.

Venerable Guan Cheng: The Diamond Sutra, Lecture 1. International Buddhist Temple, no date.

Published on 28 May 2016

The disappearance of languages – myth or reality?

There are at about 7,000 to 10,000 languages spoken worldwide, two numbers that seem very different, but that should be no surprise, since there are uncertainties what counts as a language and what is just a dialect. Prominent examples for instance are Serbo-Croatian that is often splitted into several languages such as Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Bosnian, etc.; Romanian that has Daco-Romanian (which is commonly simply known as Romanian or Moldovan), Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, etc.; or the Turkic languages that are all together considered to be dialects of Turkish in Turkey. Language doesn’t share a standard, it is identity!

A popular belief nowadays is that over 50% of the languages that are spoken today will die out within the next hundred years. This popular belief is very widespread and indeed some languages will die out, no need to argue about that, however, the idea that most languages will die out is not only scary but also unrealistic to a certain kind of degree that I want to show in this article to lessen the apocalypse of languages.

An important argument that is always given is the fact that all Top 10 (or Top 20) languages altogether are spoken by at least 80% of the world population. This fact of course is right and needs no proof, but when one takes a glimpse into the Top 10 list, one can see interesting things. The top three languages Chinese, English and Spanish are spoken globally and wide-spread. Chinese for instance is spoken natively in China, northern parts of Vietnam, in parts of Myanmar, by most people in Singapore, on the Christmas Islands, and by minority groups in Laos (3%), Thailand (14%), Cambodia, Malaysia (11%), Brunei and Indonesia. English is official in at least 70 countries and Spanish is natively spoken in at least 20 countries. Other top 10 languages, for instance, include French, which is spoken in 30 countries, thus in more countries than Spanish, and Portuguese is not spoken in many countries, anyways, as Brazil has a population of 200 million, it reaches number eight on the list. However, most languages on the Top 10 list are no languages that are on the schedule in Western schools or often studied, and honestly, sometimes even just locally important. But they have a huge amount of speakers. For instance, Malay and Indonesian (often grouped together) are the sixth most spoken language in the world, Hindi and Urdu (also often grouped together as Hindustani) are even number three in Ethnologue 2015 (18th edition). And Bengali, Japanese and Lahnda are even more widely spoken than Italian, Turkish or Vietnamese, to the latter three one might find many language courses in the West. Even Telugu, Marathi and Javanese (the latter one is spoken in Indonesia) are on the Top 20 list. This is no wonder since India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh belong to the most populous countries in the world making up over 1 billion people. Together with China (the most populous country in the world), Russia and the USA, they make up already three of seven billion people of the world. If we add South America with its Spanish and Portuguese population, we can soon reach almost 4 billion people, in other words: half of the world’s population. Adding French speakers (many of them in Africa) and Arabic speakers, we already reach 60% of the world population.

However, one important fact gets lost. Many languages with a merely small amount of speakers get lost in that statistics, but their language is stable. Slovenia has a population of 2 million people, and almost everyone is able to speak Slovenian in the country, while only 50% speak English (maybe even less if it goes to fluency). People in Slovenia speak Slovene in any situation, in official situations, at school, in restaurants, in the media, however 2 million out of 7 billion, that’s not much. Even entities in other countries such as Chechnya (in Russia) have a quite stable situation, as over 95% of Chechnya’s population is able to communicate in Chechen fluently, although Russian plays a very large role. In fact, countries with a large dominating group and a second language as lingua franca are rarely endangered. For instance, Shona is spoken by 80% of Zimbabwe’s population, although English is lingua franca among other peoples, Somali is spoken everywhere in Somalia, although Arabic and English, and in rare cases Italian (among elderly people) can be used, and 40% of Senegal’s population are Wolofs but Wolof is widely used, while French is used when talking with other ethnicities.

In Laos, 3 million people are Lao, anyways Laotian language is used as a means of communication by the 6 million people living in the country, without any other major language being spoken (except Chinese dialects being used by the Han-Chinese minority). In Cambodia, Khmer is spoken by almost everyone and again there is no second major language (except Vietnamese and Chinese being spoken by the Vietnamese and Chinese minority).

One can see easily that these countries use their languages in everyday life, in every situation, but since they only have a small population, they all count to the 10-20% who do not speak a Top 10 language as native. However, these languages are unlikely to disappear, and English, French or Spanish is only used as foreign language as means of communication or business, but the big languages are not taking over the smaller ones here. Arguing that most languages will die out beause the Top 20 languages are spoken by 80% of the world population anyways is no argument as shown above as many persistent languages are spoken in rather small countries, and major languages are only used in business or as lingua franca, or as many Top 20 languages from India that are on the list, are of no relevance for other countries anyways.

However, the languages that we really have to worry about are not the African or Asian ones (since they are still vividly spoken, and in addition to the global networking are written more than ever before, such as online literature, chat rooms, etc.), but the ones in Europe that are mainly facing death, such as the Sami languages in Scandinavia and Russia; Belarusian in Belarus; Rusyn in Ukraine, Slovakia and Serbia; Limbourgish in Germany; Luxembourgish (mainly the variants in Germany and France); Kashubian in Poland; Lombard in Italy; Breton in France; Wallonian in Belgium, and many others for which far too less (for many if anything) is done. Although Kashubian is encouraged by the Polish government and Sami is encouraged by the Scandinavian governments, there is still too less public attention done on the languages (ask anyone in Europe whether he or she has heard of it before). For Luxembourgish, Limburgish and Breton, nothing is done in Germany and France and even Gallo, Occitan and Alsacian are on its way to die out, because of the superiority of French that is still enforced by the government, more or less.

Other languages, such as Aramaic in Turkey and Syria are rather endangered through wars and displacement rather than less usage by the speakers in their home area themselves. Many Syrian refugees who speak a minority language only speak Arabic with Syrians (and sometimes also Kurdish), since they hardly find speakers of the same language that they speak at home, which means that they cannot use their own language anymore. In addition, they have to adopt to their new country, and children learn the language of their new home country, of course, which makes their own language rather irrelevant (as they have no one to speak to and no way to use it).

At the same time, everywhere around the world, more and more languages are codified and are taught in schools as well as used in literature or media. Some languages are still almost never written, but always spoken, such as languages in the Pacific. Tahitian language is the mainly spoken language in Tahiti, but when it comes to writing, French is used. However, in official situations and on markets, Tahitian is used. And although Samoan is still no popular language for literature, all instructions in Samoan schools are given bilingually. The teacher has to say the sentence always twice, in English and Samoan. And in daily life, Samoan remains the language of communication.

We can see that the main argument that languages are dying (i.e. major languages are prefered since they are spoken almost everywhere in the world) is not true. Languages that are endangered are rather languages in Europe that are not treasured and labeled as ‘dialect’ or unimportant, as well as indegenous languages in South America (as a threat of industrialisation). Some languages are endangered because the speakers are displaced mainly though wars. However, thanks to modern media, many languages stay vivid and are used in networks.

Still, all together these do not make up 50% of the languages and therefore it is unlikely that even half of all languages might disappear. Even further, recently only c. 300-500 languages are that severly endangered that they might become extinct soon. And some languages that were seen to be endangered show a rising number of speakers. For instance, Tokelauan was believed to be decreasing, with a number of 1,300 speakers 10 years ago. However, recently it has been discovered that there might be 1,700 speakers (and even newer estimations suggest that there are over 2,000 Tokelauan speakers around the world), some of them in New Zealand and the United Kingdom preserving their language. And even Samoan that was believed to have 300,000 speakers 10 years ago turned out to have 500,000 speakers in the last years. This shows that eventually more and more languages might be saved on the one side, but that many dialects might phase out in favor for a codified standard language.

Published on 29 May 2016

“The Flower Girl” in a socio-critical context of 1920s Korea

In 1972, the DPRK movie “The Flower Girl” (꽃파는처녀) was released which received much attention all around the world and probably became North Korea’s most famous movie. In contemporary views, “The Flower Girl” is often seen in a tradition of North Korean propaganda movies, which is not only misleading, but also inaccurate. To show this inaccuracy, I want to introduce the background of the movie, its plot and the historical background.

The plot of the movie is not a North Korean story, since it was not written in Post-World War II North Korea, but even before the segregation of the two Koreas. At that time, independence activists of all factions fought against the Japanese colonialism in Korea, which was very brutal and most Koreans sought to escape slavery. Freedom, independence and history became the most dominating issues in intellectual circles. Not just the grief over the lost nation, the humiliation of one people that regarded itself as the most-important and strongest for centuries, enduring many battles and tries to be conquered, but even further the slavery and torture towards the people, the misbehavior conducted by the Japanese which could be seen on the streets everywhere was the driving force for the ‘liberation war’, a kind of civil war in which Communists, anarchists, nationalists, and religious groups such as the Chondoists tried to fight against Japanese and Pro-Japanese Koreans who were traumatizing a whole nation. “The Flower Girl” was an opera written by Korean independence activists who were jailed by the Japanese in Jilin before 1930. In the memoirs of Kim Il-sung, he mentioned that he wrote the play and credited himself as main author, which can be doubted today, however, we can assume that Kim Il-sung was one of many of a small circle who wrote it together and tried to stage it. In 1930, it was probably staged in the underground Korean community in Wujiazi in Jilin.

The plot turns around a young woman called ‘Kkotpun’ who is collecting flowers on the hills and tries to sell them at the market to be able to afford medicine for her sick mother. While Kkotpun desperately tries to sell her flowers, her younger sister Sun Hui who was tortured blind by the imperialists, awaits her. As a revenge for killing the young girl’s light, her brother set the imperialist’s house on fire and is imprisoned for this act. Thus, Kkotpun and her mother are the only ones remaining in her family to make money. The sick mother has to work day and night to pay the debts to the slaveholder family and although being weak and deadly sick she endures her hardships. She tries to do any work that is given to her, but for many tasks she is far too weak and mocked heavily by her masters.

Meanwhile, Kkotpun arranges to collect enough money for her mother’s medicine, but when she returns she has to find out that her mother just died. As a result, she is obliged to continue working for the debts. To escape this situation, she leaves her sister in her family friend’s care and runs to search for her brother. During her trip through Korea, she sees a lot of pain and many slaves doing deadly labour. Arriving at her brother’s prison, she is told that he is dead, and she finally faints. Villagers take her home and arrange treatment for her. When she comes back home, she has to find out that Sun Hui was captured by the imperialists, in hope that she would die, but luckily, she can finally be rescued. At that time, she is united with her brother again who escaped prison years ago and joined a Communist group to fight for liberation. Through her brother’s motivation, the villagers finally attack their slavemaster’s house and liberate themselves. Kkotpun, Sun Hui and her brother are walking hand in hand and can be found smiling. In the ending, Kkotpun walks along the streets succesfully selling her flowers, while the song ‘The wind of spring blows over the green hills’ (Note: The ‘wind of spring’ is a symbol for ‘happiness’ in East Asian tradition) is played ending with the words:

“Fierce is [the] frost and icy is [the] wind

But flowers bloom in spring

Under the benevolent sun shining bright

Red flowers of revolution bloom up.

In villages, streets and every heart

Lovely flowers bloom

In my beautiful land of 3,000 ri

I sow the seeds of revolution flower.”

(Taken from: The Flower Girl, English subtitles, Korea Film Export & Import Corporation)

Symbolism is not only important in this song, but also in the whole movie, as well as its music. One can clearly see that it was made of material out of an opera, as the movie incorporates a lot of content-drawn music (in contrast to background music as can be found in every film) although North Korean movies always contain a lot of music guiding the stories (such as in “The Star of Korea”). The introduction song ‘Buy Flowers’ is introducing into the plot and paving the way for the viewer directly into the life of the family. It is a traditional family raised with Confucian values. There are many factors which indicate that, e.g. their dignity: Kkotpun denies to accept begging money on the streets and blames Sun Hui for trying. Kkoptpun’s mother continues working although being deadly sick and too weak for working, just to keep her dignity. The belief in ghosts and spirits, as can be found in Confucian societies, is also outstanding. Sun Hui is regarded a bad spirit, when the landlord’s wife is sick and thus was tried to be abandoned. In addition, a fortune teller appears in the beginning who is predicting the story. Fortune telling has a very long tradition in East Asia and is clearly associated with Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhist mysticism. The most significant symbol in the whole movie however is water, which is a very important symbol in Korean shamanism, where it does not only embody life, but also purity. It is often shown in desperate situations, such as the funeral of her mother and the alleged death of her brother. The motion of a river is shown, which is uncalm, thirsty, angry and desperate. The water is thus reflecting emotions. It can be also seen as a traditional Taoist element, as water always moves forward and has to adopt to any situation and thus is sometimes quiet and sometimes hesitating through the terrain.

The flowers represent a kind of vanishment, as well as hope. As one can see in the song in the ending, they represent spring. Spring represents the hope for freedom and liberty. The symbol of ‘red flowers’ and ‘revolution flower’ refer to the Communist revolution, which is not fulfilled in the movie but only announced to come, which is no surprise since the plot is from 1930, and the liberation of Korea was conducted in 1945. At the same time, the verses also show Confucian benevolence and righteousness, as well as Buddhist compassion. In the whole plot, it can be clearly seen that it is no Juche or any other ideological affiliated movie, as there are too much classical features inside that would be regarded to be ‘reactionary’ or superstitious today, although they still survive in all kinds in the society.