Where is Denis?, or I can and can't agree with just sitting there.

From: Bill Barowy (wbarowy@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Oct 24 2001 - 17:48:06 PDT


IMHO Sitting is one form of doing. Meditation is another. And so is thinking.
 Or even fishing. I think and agree that U.S. Americans seem more prone to
being deliberately busy than being busy with deliberation. But buddhists are
not, to the best of my knowledge, against action.

What I'd like to offer is a view of meditation from activity theory -- whether
sitting in meditation, and focussing on breathing -- or walking in meditation,
and focussing on the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other -- it is
the rhythm, deliberately doing something at the level of operations, that frees
the mind at the level of action. Concentration on what is normally routine
moves the routine to the level of action, makes the day-to-day and the moment
by moment adjustable, and to some degree, controllable. The degree of control
is a matter of not trying, the more one tries, the less control one has. The
beautiful contradiction is that letting go puts it in your hand. At the bottom
of this slippery slope is balance. This lesson can transfer to other actions.
But a lot of the time it does not.

So... where IS Denis Newman nowadays? Has he reached a higher plane of
Davydov?

bb

=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]

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