OPM 109 takes up what I called yesterday in my blog post the mystery of the mysterious: that unbridgeable gap that persists between the human existential reality, Existence per se that allows for the former to be. This allowance, spoken of in this way, is, of course, the most general sense of Being. And when we take a step back, we ask, How is it possible for there to be a gap between Being and beings, an ontological difference between human reality and Existence per se? Isn't the former 'part of' or existence within (subsisting) in Being? Where is the difference? The response to this line of inquiry is the following: the difference is arises at the boundary of language, between what can and cannot be said with words. In turn, the challenge that arises is one of 'saying' something significant (meaningful, impactful) without words. Or, perhaps, its better to avoid the value laden, and put it as follows: the challenge is to 'map' this 'ground' (and it is, of course more than that!), this location of meditative thinking -- what I have called, following Heidegger, the 'open region'. Here is where my recent shift to the cartographical, to philosophical cartography (which is a subset of geography) begins; specifically with the insistence that the location be named as a 'sacred space.' Why? Because the genealogy of the cartographical renders something I call the huacalogical, a neologism I have constructed that combines the Incan word for sacred space (mostly natural, such as springs and summits) huaca with the ancient Greek word for knowledge/thinking (collapsing these two for the sake of creative tension) logos. Huacalogical denotes knowledge/thinking of sacred space, and is the philosophical methodology of responding to the question: Donde Estamos? (where are we?)
That brings me to OPM 109, which picks up on the citation of Lao Tzu that concluded OPM 108, and connecting this with all the writing I have been doing on the ineffable, along with the images of petroglyphs, and other non-verbal pictographical forms of communication. The key line in the Lao Tzu citation is the hypothetical: "If its deep mystery we would sound." The 'sounding' of the deep mystery is key, because it is what we 'hear' when we 'listen' to the call of Being, which, poetically, suggest, listening to what is 'not us.' There are many implications to this, specifically as it pertains to developing a multicultural sensibility, but also in terms of developing an ecological consciousness. The 'not us' is both what were are not, singularly and collective, as individuals, as member of groups, and as humans.
But if we are hearing it, how is it that we 'sound' the deep mystery? In OPM 109 I make the link between the location of meditative thinking, that Heidegger has been cited as calling the 'enchanted region,' and the kind of sounding/saying that happens there. What is the sound of meditation? Silence? Something en-chanting? Whatever the case, I feel myself to have encountered an aporia with this 'sounding' of the deep mystery. For how can we 'sound' what is heard? And what of the non-verbal mapping of the location of meditative thinking? The question regarding the 'sound' of meditation seems to revert back to the verbal, and I sense I am caught in a feedback loop!
That brings me to OPM 109, which picks up on the citation of Lao Tzu that concluded OPM 108, and connecting this with all the writing I have been doing on the ineffable, along with the images of petroglyphs, and other non-verbal pictographical forms of communication. The key line in the Lao Tzu citation is the hypothetical: "If its deep mystery we would sound." The 'sounding' of the deep mystery is key, because it is what we 'hear' when we 'listen' to the call of Being, which, poetically, suggest, listening to what is 'not us.' There are many implications to this, specifically as it pertains to developing a multicultural sensibility, but also in terms of developing an ecological consciousness. The 'not us' is both what were are not, singularly and collective, as individuals, as member of groups, and as humans.
But if we are hearing it, how is it that we 'sound' the deep mystery? In OPM 109 I make the link between the location of meditative thinking, that Heidegger has been cited as calling the 'enchanted region,' and the kind of sounding/saying that happens there. What is the sound of meditation? Silence? Something en-chanting? Whatever the case, I feel myself to have encountered an aporia with this 'sounding' of the deep mystery. For how can we 'sound' what is heard? And what of the non-verbal mapping of the location of meditative thinking? The question regarding the 'sound' of meditation seems to revert back to the verbal, and I sense I am caught in a feedback loop!
3.0 - Yesterday I focused on the connection between 'mystery' and 'mystic,' and how this connection points to the originary moment of learning. That moment is pre-linguistic in the sense of being the moment when the learner is positioned in the Open region of silence. From the perspective of time, the Open is this initial place, the starting point. A student becomes a learner when they are located in the Open ready to learn. As Heidegger says, we are ready to learn when we have unlearned and allow for what appears in the present moment to address us. This allowance is offered through listening. Learning begins with listening. And the practice of listening is bracketing or putting aside of speaking. When we truly listen we are receiving what is essential in the moment. When we truly listen we are fully present and with the present moment. The Open is an existential place that is defined by the temporality of the present, and if we want to make a play on words, it is the place of giving: the present as an offering of what is new. Learning is the praxis that emerges from the present, the reception and response to the new. This is where originary thinking begins, and this beginning is an initiative. Arendt says we can begin because we are beginners. But if to begin in the sense of the dialectic of education can only happen after we have unlearned, then the movement into the Open happens when we have emptied ourselves. The word that has appeared in 3.0 to describe this emptying is 'kenosis.' Something just occurred to me: the dialectic is a series of moments that repeats. Generally I have denoted them as listening>writing> speaking. But it strikes me that this first moment of listening allows us to identify learning as a discrete moment within the dialectic of education. Learning is the receptive modality, the first encounter with the new. Can we say that 'study' is the second moment?
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