240917: but then I really like source material (the book), the author (Philip K. Dif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240917: but then I really like source material (the book), the author (Philip K. Dick), philosophy in general (more cultural than analytic). pop culture, pop philosophy, just new ways to look at series. variable quality essays as in any collection. fun. if you really like what I mention above......more
240707: read in one day, three sittings, obviously easy to read. or perhaps that isif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240707: read in one day, three sittings, obviously easy to read. or perhaps that is because I have read so many on buddhism. but this is excellent. rather than review the entire book, I will focus on each chapter to the end of section 5: how to be an enlightened materialist. here buddhism comes closest to the phenomenology I know from m-p and husserl. this reflects major themes previous and sums all up. 1: comparative empiricisms, 2: myth, logic, the logic of mythology, 3: does the buddha lie?, 4: zen masters and their way with words, 5: how to be an enlightened materialist, 6: reflecting on the buddha to reflect on ourselves...
1, investigates the different 'empiricism' of the Europeans (English etc/) and Indian systems. there is some argument for 'why study bd?, which always already seems obvious to me, but then Europe, particularly England has never been the conceptual centre of my world. basically, the difference in temp is pragmatic attitude: for the bd the more know the more we can show the 'emptiness' of 'conventional life, the more obvious is the language schism between European (skepticism) and Indian (limitations). here is the beginning of mischaracterising bd as 'nihilism'. European prizes ( illusory) objectivity in viewing the world as separate and independent and real. Indian insists on (essential) subjectivity being in the world, not separate and independent but causal result of dependent arising... so what is selected as of empirical value is not the same...
2, examines myth, logic and logical mythology. I always already have slight prejudice against logic as final arbiter for what is 'real'. like to see the world as more flexible, more surprising, more romantic than the most advanced math can pretend to 'solve'. For myth has always come first for me, the idea that what is real involves the emotions of that experience is more real than the abstracted, objective, rendering of the same has seemed obvious. I would not be an artist if I felt otherwise...
3, does the buddha lie? seems to me provocative title for admitted changes, contradictions, from years of his teaching, so this seems less important chapter. found the dual interpretations of 'karma' interesting (naturalism reflecting moment by moment 'rebirth' as metaphor) and religious (literal as readily of 'hells')...
4, zen masters and their way with words, is the extreme form of buddhism and where I started in my art days. the concept of 'teaching without words' and colourful stories and indeed 'stand-up' comedy routines is excellent vision of this genre of buddhism...
5: how to be an enlightened materialist, is where we get to religion and science in the mirror of buddhism. it has taken me awhile to reach this place, here goes. the most important, the essential, affect of buddhist metaphysics is this: the elimination of the mind/body distinction. this is because there is renewed primacy given to the 'mind only' model of reality- but this is supported by kind of 'buddhist materialism' where matter has very secondary supporting role and the key to what is 'real' is always the mind. there are two methods of gaining knowledge: direct witness, inference (flames of fire, smoke of fire) and there are two words to describe action/event: live or dead and there are 'reified things' and 'saving the appearances' which show basic poverty of western thought: the use of 'dead words' for living real, the insistence on using logic to confound human experience, the abstract concepts of science to correlate what it chooses to be real no matter how ontologically real they are (space, time, force, mass etc.)
6: reflecting on the buddha to reflect on ourselves, mostly deals with 'meta-scientific/religious' discussions of the various narrative we tell ourselves around all these contested words : science, religion, buddhism, empiricism, logic, math, real etc. great summing up......more
240611: excellent. not much more to say. easy to read one way, hard to read another way. 'trigger warnings' always suggest to me there is subject wort240611: excellent. not much more to say. easy to read one way, hard to read another way. 'trigger warnings' always suggest to me there is subject worth examining, reasoning, reflecting, not pushing it away or refusing to read it. this is not exactly the experience of the women known who have been abused, everyone is different, or my experience as boy......more
240527: if you have starry-eyed romanticism of starflight (who does not?) if you appreciate the novella form, if you can recognise variations of futur240527: if you have starry-eyed romanticism of starflight (who does not?) if you appreciate the novella form, if you can recognise variations of future humans, if you can imaginatively fill-in the armature of story with no extra details, this is beautiful work. concise, compelling, emotional. heart breaking ending- but how else could it end...?...more
240429: expected, excellent, exasperating. I am not American but as almost everyoneif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240429: expected, excellent, exasperating. I am not American but as almost everyone in the world am affected by their politics, and, recently, exactly how that has been distorted, deformed, destroyed in the interests of one man. This I expected from years of political awareness. This book is an excellent transcript of the Select Committees investigation, narrative, interview, overview, history, other and other narratives, that rewards reading it all the way through. This book is exasperating that this man is serious contender to return to power despite criminal acts......more
240517: excellent resource of texts on and by and about modern literature. but. thiif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240517: excellent resource of texts on and by and about modern literature. but. this is resource read without guidance, skipping around according to interests, perhaps best as assigned text at u. there is everything from Oscar Wilde to Ernest Hemingway. but. most of the authors re canonical English eg. Virginia or Ruskin or Conrad, very few not Eurocentric, few critical, more appreciation, gives sense of the times...
and great excerpt from Henri Bergson in Creative Evolution that encapsulates in beautiful writing exactly his mature thought... think will go read it again......more
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