PPM53 is an example of a breath-catching meditation, which does not mean it will take your breath away, but, on the contrary, was an occasion for me to catch my breath. As I say in the post-reading commentary, I don't have any notes and I have little recollection about the specific moods or even the place where I wrote this material. I could, of course, go back and locate a planner and see where I might have been when writing this or that particular meditation, but I don't feel compelled to do that at the moment. What I can surmise from this meditation, which appears on pp. 85-86 of Being and Learning, is that it was the occasion for me to articulate a question that pushes forward my reading of Plato's Allegory, and don't say much beyond raising the question and offering some context for it.
In turn, PPM53 builds on the key statement from Plato's Republic (518), where he says we all "possess the power of learning the truth and the organ to see it with," and, further, that there must be an art of turning us around (paideia) and thereby turning on the capacity or power. So the question I raise wonders whether or not there has to be some kind of preparation to receive the call, to be turned around and turned on to learning: "How is it that we are made ready to receive the call? How are we prepared to receive the call of Learning?" I conjecture that it has something to do with relationality, and here I am returning to the prior analysis of the Allegory where I suggested that the cave-dwellers constitute a unique demos that stands apart from those who are orchestrating the whole theatre of deception. There is something fundamental about this fellowship that I will explore in the upcoming meditations; fundamental in the sense that it it perhaps what prepares us for receiving the call to learn, the offering of freedom. In turn, I conclude PPM53 writing: "If we go back to the first part of the 'Allegory' we may find a way of understanding this modality of preparedness [that prepares us to get underway] in the very beginning of the story, in the modality of bondage and delusion."
In turn, PPM53 builds on the key statement from Plato's Republic (518), where he says we all "possess the power of learning the truth and the organ to see it with," and, further, that there must be an art of turning us around (paideia) and thereby turning on the capacity or power. So the question I raise wonders whether or not there has to be some kind of preparation to receive the call, to be turned around and turned on to learning: "How is it that we are made ready to receive the call? How are we prepared to receive the call of Learning?" I conjecture that it has something to do with relationality, and here I am returning to the prior analysis of the Allegory where I suggested that the cave-dwellers constitute a unique demos that stands apart from those who are orchestrating the whole theatre of deception. There is something fundamental about this fellowship that I will explore in the upcoming meditations; fundamental in the sense that it it perhaps what prepares us for receiving the call to learn, the offering of freedom. In turn, I conclude PPM53 writing: "If we go back to the first part of the 'Allegory' we may find a way of understanding this modality of preparedness [that prepares us to get underway] in the very beginning of the story, in the modality of bondage and delusion."
3.0 - Still now electricity on Turkey Hill, so back in Forage Café for today's commentary. Of course, the original 2004 iteration of this project was "offline," occurring pre-smart phone but in the time of wifi. If memory serves we had the Fios (fiber optics back in Amityville, NY), and it was only this past week that fiber optics finally made its way to our home in Portland. But no sooner did we get super fast wifi, the connection to the grid was broken! What is that saying by Mao, 1 step forward, 2 steps backward. But it's a great excuse to get down to my favorite cafe. Back in 2004 I spent a lot of time writing at the cafe that was adjacent to the best bagel place in the world, the appropriately names Better Bagel. I used to run into a yoga teacher, really cool dude, who used to sit with me and talk about the project. He was so inspired by my project that for awhile he was running a book discussion of Nagarjuna. A web summary: "Nāgārjuna is widely considered to be the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement. [ His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ( Root Verses on Madhyamaka, MMK) is the most important text on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness." I don't recall that yogi's name, but our discussion really motivated me, especially my exploration of "emptiness" via the Buddha. I will keep my eyes open for any mention of Nagarjuna, which I have to believe appears in "Being and Learning." But remembering back to working in that Amityville coffee shop and talking with that yogi, I'm inspired to revisit Nagarjuna on emptiness. So much of the project after last summer is focused on the multiple denotations of "emptiness" - the (w)hole, abyss, negative space, even the threshold and portal, not to mention the empty center at the middle of the vinyl record. Need to revisit Nagarjuna! Final recollection of cafe writing: back in 2014, lots of the 2.0 commentary happened at what was then my favorite place, Crema coffee shop. Luckily when Crema closed during the pandemic, Forage, Portland, opened. The original Forage, in Lewiston, was a favorite place to go with Sofie when she was at Bates.
ReplyDeleteWhat immediately jumps out to me from 2.0 is the description of PPM53 as "break-taking": break taking, taking of breath, emptying out, physically and spiritually in order to receive (i.e, the yoga class I attended this morning); breath taking as the figurative taking away of the rational/cognitive/ego/will, the displacement of that instrumental 'self.'
3.0b - But the question that PPM53 takes up is: : "How is it that we are made ready to receive the call? How are we prepared to receive the call of Learning?" This 'prep' work is necessary, but also a bit of a paradox, especially if we emphasize the spontaneous and thus unplanned/not-willed event of learning, especially the origin of this event. How does one prepare for the event of learning, and/or, how can one prepare for it? Or even, should one prepare for it? The 2.0 commentary suggests something a bit vague: the preparation is happening with the fellowship or community of learning. "There's something about the fellowship..." Vague, but not in an interesting way! For me in this context of engaging with Plato's Allegory, it seems that what I was going for with the "something" is the mutual experienced 'comfort' in the 'delusion,' the collective 'happiness' in not-thinking, the old, ignorance is bliss. That 'bliss' is the modality that prepares one for the real shock experienced when the evocative calls one into the modality of learning, the work of art that suddenly and unexpectedly captivates. I'm not entirely convinced by this, although it seems to be a faithful reading of the Allegory. The problem is the next time, and the time after, when the learning is anticipating the arrival of the captivating moment. If it is truly an event, that one must always wait for it to happen, even if one is anticipating it's arrival. And so long as the emphasis remains on the experience as an event, then each and every time it occurs it is singular, unique, and analogically similar to others, but not the same. Again, this is what Arendt's beginner experiences with their natality; and this is what Heidegger's gelassenheit is anticipating: letting-go of the will in order to be in the modality of the beginning, the novitiate, the one who can be initiated/initiate.
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