Heidegger

>Tympan,
>
>Thanks for returning my call.
>
>I think each of us is capable of understanding
>the other’s thinking because of the ways in
>which thinking is reflected in language,
>language that is willfully put forward as a
>translation for the other of what is going on in
>one’s mind. That’s not the only willful putting
>forward of language of course. There are dozens
>of other speech-act possibilities. But the
>willful putting forward of a translation for the
>other of a reflection of thought as one sees it
>developing is about as generous as we get with
>one another. I recognize the generous putting
>forward and respond in kind. The ongoing result
>definitely approaches circularity, as you
>suggest. Such exchanges are at the heart of
>Gadamer’s understanding of hermeneutics. But as
>I said in my last post, there’s no way I can
>understand my own thinking as well as I
>understand yours. I guess because of the fact
>that you and I can come to an understanding, a
>Sichverstehen, as Heidegger puts it. The way
>language works makes it difficult to impossible
>for me to come to an understanding with myself.
>”Thinking comes to language in dialogue.” I
>didn’t expect to arrive at this point, but here
>I am. Whaddyah think?
>
>
>tympan: Well, I think you have make the effort
>to stay the course and dialogue more.
>
>Allen It’s interesting, understanding DOES
>really have a mood. I’m thinking the
>understanding referred to here is a WAY of
>understanding. I think that’s what we share here.
>
>Tympan: You mean by understanding the activity
>indicated by being-in-the-world or something
>else?
>
>Allen: The mood I seem to be in these days
>points me in the direction of dialogue. I can
>do nothing but follow and make appropriated
>response/observations along the way. That was
>quite an elision; my apologies, but I think you
>can get the idea.You seem to be saying similar
>below regarding ek-statically bemooded
>observations,
>
>tympan: What you read is not wrong but I have
>been thinking on a daily basis of a practice, a
>way of standing out… perhaps not unlike a seed
>that sprouts and starts to emerge from the dark
>ground but nevertheless something is held back
>so there is a tension between what is emerging
>out unconcealment and what is returning into
>concealment. Perhaps one can picture it as a
>living pillar.

What an image, Tymp! I would not have thought up
a living pillar, no matter how much time I had.
Images speak for themselves in a way that is not
open to argument. That’s one of the wonderful
things about poetry: you can’t argue with it.
Your arrival at the living pillar reminds me of
Hericlitus: “Up and down are the same.” That
situation allows for multiple images occupying
the same place at the same time.

>But to get back to the point, In the case of
>philosophy, mood correlates with a “how,” a
>way of seeing things, a “methodos.” I think
>that that’s what we occasionally
>share.–especially when you consider that each
>of us is already in a mood, there’s no getting
>around it. One could say that discourse, the
>”style” of it, the way one puts things, one
>might say, brings the differing moods together
>for a moment of conversation.

>Allen :though I don’t quite see how the killing
>of the first born fits in. That sort of
>collatoral damage is a bi-product of any
>operation of that presumptuous magnitude.
>
>Tympan: Really? It has the “spiritual meaning”
>of nipping in the bud an intentional thought to
>sin. I thought I made this clear the last couple
>of days. The expression makes reference to the
>practice of meditation and to what attentive
>vigilance is looking out for. You are not
>thinking in a literal manner are you?

Of course I’m thinking in a literal manner. Any
metaphor, spiritual or otherwise, comes to us in
words, what the words themselves mean. Then
comes the midrashic, the allegorical (permitted
to guys like us by al Gahzali), the metaphorical,
first and foremost fitting with the letter of the
word. Then it has earned the right to go off on
its own: “Love, and do what you will”

Have to attend to some things–later,

Allen

>It has a spiritual meaning in the sense that it
>indicates how through prayer one is dealing with
>temptations whether they an emerging sin or an
>emerging blessing which can be just as harmful.
>I assumed you read (re:BT may31st?). Partly it
>reads, “This process of entombment [with Jesus
>after the crucifixtion] never ends just like
>there is an ongoing empowerement of the I when
>one follows Moses which can only happen through
>a constant guarding of the heart. This practice
>involves what Gregory of Nyssa in “The Life of
>Moses” calls a principle without which “it is
>impossible to flee the Egyptian life”. This
>principle involves the ongoing and constant
>sacrifice of “the first born of Egypt”. It is an
>important figurative expression that shows how
>contemplative practice works I added Ibn Arabi’s
>further comment that it is also important to
>question any emerging blessings and not just a
>tempting sin. The “firstborn of Egypt” means an
>intention to sin. Contemplatives like St.
>Gregory of Nyssa teach us how to cut it off
>before it is actualized. This practice is what
>allows one to ascend the mountain like Moses.
>It’s the purification required to approach the
>inner sanctuary.
>
>
>tympan old: I have been thinking if I were
>Jewish reading Heidegger given what I have been
>saying lately I would see Heidegger connect to
>the practice of killing the “first born of
>Egypt” through his being-in-the-world which is
>itself a psychological spiritual therapy i.e.
>leads to the tranquility of the mind that is
>there when one is guarding the heart mind and
>there is a sense of wonder before the beyng of
>the things themselves. It’s a being towards
>death just like the model at issue in the
>Baptism of water in St. Basil’s “Concerning
>Baptism” but it is also the story of the
>struggle for the recognition of the people of
>Isreal through a dividing of the I or through a
>disidentification of the I with it’s
>narcissistic individuality such that you get
>Selfhood or Dasein. The foundational stone is
>the start of the construction of pehaps a third
>Temple of a New Jerusalem? Of course it’s not
>according to the final wishes of Heidegger but
>it works when you are thinking through a sort of
>structural analogical imagination. It all
>reinforces the goal of mental health understood
>as the practice where one guards the heart
>mind.The practice prepares the Bride for the
>Bridegroom where Isreal is the soul.This way one
>attains some measure of peace that is ecumenical
>and interfaith oriented. The building of a
>temple is a process, a redeeming practice, a way
>towards sanctification but also the midrash of
>an ongoing conversational circle. It is an
>emergent network where each person is a “node”,
>”cell”, “lodge”, “altar”, “chamber”, etc;
>participating according to their allotted
>portion or gift or blessing in a temple process.
>The common purpose is clear — the killing of
>the first born of Egypt i.e. mental health. St.
>Basil says as much when he in “Concerning
>Baptism” writes that the “solicitude of the
>inner man is of the first importance, that the
>mind may be free from distraction and, as it
>were, be identified with the aim of giving glory
>to God […] We men are easily prone to sins of
>thought. Therefore, he who has formed each heart
>individually, knowing that the impulse received
>from the intention constitutes the major element
>in sin, has ordained that purity in the ruling
>part of the soul be our primary concern.” The
>most important thing is the renewal of the old
>self, the sanctification of Egyptian roots such
>that the people of Isreal can be recognized as
>much as the influence of the sacred heart of
>Jesus inside our own heart. I was saying this
>involves a radical sublimation of
>self-interested exchange that leads to a more
>universal expression of interest or love. The
>basic principle even of Joseph Smith founder of
>the Mormons was following the model of dying
>with Jesus and redeeming oneself through that
>practice and so through the Baptism of the
>waters of mercy, of the active intellect or
>first good. It’s the story of the life of Moses.
>
>Allen: I think there’s a problem here regarding
>the reconfiguration of referents. Midrash, even
>of the extreme Philonic sort, never confuses
>what is called in Hebrew the “mashal” and the
>”nimshal.” The first is the paradigmatic figure,
>the second, the derived figure.
>
>Tympan: I didn’t know that. Would you like to
>say more? I think there is something to what you
>say. Above I am thinking of practice or prayer.
>The figures used I think of as points of focus
>that one leaves when the mind comes to rest on
>the ineffable. They are ways of concentrating
>and cultivating attentiveness like the Jesus
>chant, or the monophonic chanting of early music.
>
>
>Allen: Derive all the figures you want, but I
>think it’s important to keep the originary
>paradigmatic figure respectfully uncontaminated.
>That way we can all be brothers and share the
>same text.
>
>
>Tympan: A word like “heart mind” indicates a
>bridge where there is a criss-crossing of one’s
>own thoughts and that which is beyond anything
>going inside our heads and certainly beyond
>words and language. A certain way of existing is
>indicated but not described. So when I speak
>about the practice of “guarding the heart mind”
>this points to the cultivation of a pure
>intention and not the seeing of anything or the
>hearing of anything. It is this darkness, to use
>what to me is obviously figurative, that
>constituted the cloud through which Moses
>approached God [exod. 20:10]. St Gregory of
>Nyssa interprets this by saying that “As the
>mind progresses and, through an ever greater and
>more perfect diligence, comes to apprehend
>reality, as it approaches more nearly to
>contemplation, it sees more clearly what of the
>divine nature is uncontemplated.” (from “The
>Life of Moses”). I understand your concern and I
>think I share it but I cannot be sure. I say
>this because for many years as far as I can
>remember you have not discussed how it is that
>one can go about keeping “the originary
>paradigmatic figure respectfully uncontaminated.
>” I can’t be sure, Allen, what it is we are
>supposed to be “sharing”. For me it is about
>sharing a contemplative practice, prayer most of
>all that leads to ‘understanding’ that which
>cannot be understood or felt by any kind of
>ecstatic mood for that matter. So, to use an
>illustration, Nyssa writes that when Moses has
>ascended the mountain to the very limit and is
>in a dark cloud and he can’t figure anything out
>anymore he “passes on to the tabernacle not made
>with hands”. This “tabernacle” is an odd figure
>for it is a figure of that which is without
>figure. It *draws* the imaginative faculty out
>of making figures or in other words it has a
>spiritual therapeutic intent because it quiets
>the mind which might otherwise be agitated by
>the imagination. The imagination has to learn to
>question itself and it can only do that if it
>knows how it is that thoughts emerge like, as I
>was saying, the “first born of Egypt” or even
>the notion of an emergent blessing or gift. This
>is the role of a figurative imagination and the
>arts. Either way, whether it is a question of
>nipping in the bud a sin or a blessing the
>stories point to a practice of redemption
>through which after much effort one can come to
>peace of mind until the weather changes anyway
>and a storm comes our way. One can be sure that
>the weather will change no doubt about that,–
>that is why vigilance and practice is necessary
>right until we pass away. Like I said I can’t be
>sure but in so far as prayer is concerned even
>that most beneficial kind which is “pure prayer”
>is written into the sacred texts and it’s
>meaning, at least by the church Fathers, is
>brought out by what is called the “spiritual
>meaning”. This meaning points to a contemplative
>practice. The discussion of such practice is a
>conversational circle in the precise sense of an
>ascent of mount Whatever that involves a
>practice of purification which can only happen
>through prayer that leads to that which remains
>concealed, remains uncontemplated, is yet to be
>thought if not beyond both intelligence and the
>senses. These networks of dialogue are base
>hermeneutical communities whose mission is
>spiritual therapy,– peace of mind. Practicing
>is the hard part. Making it into an ethos is
>hard. Hour to hour going “Oh, there is another
>emerging thought, what nonsense I keep
>thinking”, this is hard.
>
>Thanks for your thoughts, you might still see
>something that makes no sense to you but I am
>thinking through what I have to work out more
>like the role of the imagination in spiritual
>therapy. It’s a tool through which we learn to
>see that for the most part our life is full of
>thoughts that are no more than useless fantasy.
>It seems to me that one can make the distinction
>between a not very helpful use of the
>imagination and one that is reedeming. The
>Biblical imagination is certainly reedeming in
>the precise sense that you get when the
>”spiritual meaning” or the meaning that has to
>do with how the praying mind works is brought
>out. This is what interpretation is for so are
>the best conversational circles which lead to
>true healing and are intelligent.
>
>regards,
>tympan
>
>
>
>Regards for now,
>
>
>
>Allen
>
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Posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 12:20 am
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