[Xmca-l] Re: Meaning extended from index to Correspondence

[HENRY SHONERD]

David,
Nice!
But I am curious about what (awearable?) is doing at the end of your post. You can’t put on the Buddha nature? 
Henry

> On Aug 4, 2016, at 3:54 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> A colleague of mine down the hall is working on the translation of the
> Platform Sutra of the eighth century Sixth Patriarch, Huineng. Huineng was
> the first Buddhist patriarch who could neither read nor write, and (more
> importantly) the Platform Sutra is the historical moment when Buddhism
> became a religious option for the illiterate masses of China. It is a
> written text, but it is a written account of speaking, and it is written to
> be spoken.
> 
> One way in which Christianity became a religious option for the illiterate
> masses was through simple, narrativistic artforms, such as the mosaics of
> San Marco in Venice, or the icons of Russia. Buddhists have this too--there
> has already been some discussion here on the ox pictures (there is, by the
> way, a beautiful text that goes with the pictures, and there is a place on
> the lintel of most temples in Korea where the pictures with their exegesis
> can be seen). In one of our books we use the ox pictures for Vygotsky's
> account of the six periods and five crises in which the child's personality
> arises.
> 
> But that's not what my colleague is doing. She is using two pictures by the
> same twelfth century artist Liang Kai. They adorn different translations of
> the Platform Sutra, and each has a specific relation to the way the
> Platform Sutra has been translated. In one, the patriarch is at eye level
> and he is tearing up the previous sutras in disgust, a roguish gleam in his
> eye and his tongue protruding in fun. In the other, the patriarch is
> kneeling to cut bamboo (which he did for many years before being recognized
> as a patriarch) and we see the top of his head.
> 
> The idea is that eye-level and from above represent two different camera
> angles and two different stances towards the represented object: one of
> which is egalitarian and the other of which is authoritarian. There are two
> other relevant systems of interpersonal meaning: the "shot" (close up or
> distant) and the "gaze" (direct or avoidant). Now, these systems are all
> meaningful: "shot" is about the relation of text to context, and "gaze" is
> about willingness to engage withe the participants.As for the system of
> "angle", it expresses the power relation between the viewer and the Sixth
> Patriarch.
> 
> I think this is somewhat anachronistic--Chinese painting is more like
> calligraphy than like cinematography. I also don't think that my
> colleague's systems are textual systems, because they don't have a
> lexicogrammar: the meanings are not encoded in symbols but rather, as with
> child proto-language, more directly in indexes. What they lack is precisely
> "correspondence"--a relationship that can be uncoupled and recoupled in
> different ways, a relationship which involves "realization" in both senses,
> because as the content is encoded in expression it is "realized" in the
> sense of being made material, and as the expression is coded as content it
> is "realized" in the sense of being made aware, or being made awareable.
> Instead, they are attempts to get around language, or anyway, to get around
> written language, and make the fundamental insight of common Buddha-nature
> part of the everyday garb of the illiterate masses (awearable?)
> 
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 11:57 PM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> We have been exploring identity and subjectivity and selfhood.
>> In relation to a few themes:
>> • We have been exploring perezhivanie and this phenomena expressing
>> *meaning*
>> • James Ma shifts the focus to *potential* in (meaning) potential
>> • In relation to James Ma’s contribution we turned to Paul Kockleman and
>> the Semiotic Stance.
>> • The semiotic stance has classically referred to an indexical relation of
>> a sign standing for an object
>> • Kockleman expands the classical semiotic stance to always being
>> (thirds). Thirds include double relations of (standing for): The sign
>> standing for the object AND the sign standing for the interpretant in a
>> double relation of (standing for) which expands from (2nds indexical) to
>> (thirds corresponding)
>> • An example is the correspondence of pronouns (you) (me)  (it).  Me as I
>> Stand in relation to it and Me as I stand in relation to you. In such a way
>> that you stand in relation to it and you stand in relation to me in a
>> double relation of standing for that (corresponds). The object’s relation
>> to both you and to I correspond as (thirds) which is general and abstract.
>> • Rein introduced (ity) as (arising) phenomena that do not exist as
>> objects (in potential) or as objects with  (essence). All is impermanence
>> as thematic NOT STRUCTURALLY opposite to permanence or stability or
>> solidity. (ity) has existence as arising when the *now* HAS arrived. This
>> arising of existents do not exist in potential. (ity) is also not under an
>> agents *control*. Arising phenomena exist as momentary things materially
>> but radically particular and idio/syncretic.
>> • Ity is not general
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>> 
>>