/lit/ - Literature

>>12608966
i'm really not saying anything super roundabout or even all that remarkable perhaps, just that there are some fascinating connections in what is the journey of the spirit towards enlightenment through a sequence of unknowing and painful miseducations in difference that culminate in enlightenment (and imprisonment) and Bodhisattva status later on

Wukong is not *evil,* he is just *vexed* by these things, and has no fucking idea what he is doing. he stumbles towards the absolute because he is incapable of being deceived...but has never left the Buddha's palm in the end. he has a *cognitive encounter* with his own name, the name that he writes in the Buddha's palm...

compare and contrast Song dynasty/Vinegar Tasters sensibilities to Kant/Hegel et al however you please. i'm just curious about where you think the analogies and comparisons work and where they break down.

ty most kindly, whatever thoughts or musings this might prompt or percolate would be welcome

>>12388472
i need to ramble further about this.

the reason why i have become so obsessed with the Journey of late is because *it is a story about the Enlightenment of differences.* the Monkey King is enlightened by both the Taoists and the Buddhists, but the story doesn't just end there. Wukong isn't really the hero of the story; but without him, the story doesn't mean half as much. what your posted prompted is this: *why would the Buddha actually agree to let Wukong out?* because, perhaps as is *always* the case, *he has a job for that Monkey.* it is to protect and guide the monk, who is both naive and relatively helpless; but it is also because such is the Monkey's own journey towards salvation. otherwise, why not just leave him underneath the mountain forever?

this makes sense to me. and also because i can't think of a lot of other stories like this. the only two that come to mind are the Oresteia and Lord of the Rings. in the Oresteia, the furies are banished by Athena, who intervenes on behalf of Orestes; and LOTR, in which Gollum is an aspect of Frodo, but there you have the triumvirate of Frodo-Gollum-Sam. but Wukong is something else. all of his martial prowess, rage, cunning, and the rest - things that we learn *not to underestimate* after reading Nietzsche et al eventually come up against the Buddha, who gives Wukong the kinds of answers he is looking for.

but the story doesn't end there. it could, if it were a lesser work, but it doesn't. i just think that maybe this clarifies *why* the Buddha might have done something other than banish Wukong forever, *or* why he would bother sharing some of his wisdom with him in the first place: and it is because he has *a job in mind* for that monkey, which a dual one: in one sense, it's 'Save the World' - that's Xuanzang's task, but the other is, *now be something other than what you are.* and yet, because it is the Buddha, it is also not something other than Wukong's essential monkey nature. hence the name, 'Monkey Awakened to Emptiness.'

and if that is what he had in mind, that is a fucking 2413/10 story and piece of insight on the author's, imho. that's how you handle an existential crisis. you enlighten, you forgive, and you give people jobs worth doing. where's Peterson? maybe i should tweet this to him.

>>12375393
i don't really know why i felt the need to go on this schizo-ramble; just venting some stuff that has built up inside, perhaps. it has to do with the sense that we are simply addicted, or have become addicted, to a kind of thinking which is killing us, for a number of reasons. it does so because it intoxicates, and because it is a purported remedy for intoxication; we hate neoliberalism, so we feel pulled towards communism; we hate communism, so we are pulled towards fascism; we hate fascism, so we are pulled towards neoliberalism; a complete whirlwind of existential fashion choices.

but it's all from precisely those feelings of homelessness, of loneliness, that heidegger talked about. militancy itself, mass activism, isn't necessarily the sign of being Woke; it might also just be a sign of being *profoundly confused and terribly lonely.* telling other people you have the answers, or keying in on a scapegoat who is to blame for everything, isn't a sign of enlightenment, it's the sign of a *failure to recognize yourself.* people joke about the death of God without realizing what in fact this would mean; the death of Karl Marx is i think an equally and perhaps even more necessary catastrophe to meditate on today. socialism - in either its extreme left or extreme right forms - will not save you, and neither will cynical neoliberalism, which is either only a form of waiting for socialism, or trying to avoid the obvious interconnections between materialism, politics and culture that the fascists and communists both know entirely too well.

inhumanist philosophy means *something very different from what we have.* that is both the good news and the bad news. good, because we are presently stuck on a wheel of doom; bad, because it will be hard to leave the familiar. but it has to be done. the Matrix loves vitalism; the Matrix loves babies and happiness. it loves that you love it. it will not abide your dislike of happiness. it absolutely knows your dreams, your fantasies, even your fantasies of the Third Reich or the Soviet International. perhaps especially those. war-machines were always good for business; and as long as you are lonely, and in need of a cure, someone will always have a pharmakon to lend you.

but it's not right. it's not just. it's not true. nor is it good, or beautiful. maybe reality really is a desert: hard, lonely, hot, and mostly inscrutable. aren't you okay with that? i'm okay with that. i'm okay with it because it is hard to grow illusions in the desert. out there in the desert there's me, there's you, and there's this unutterable silence. that's what we've got. it's hard, it's practical, and it's hostile to life. the desert doesn't really like you; it's not meant for living in. every day living in the desert would be a miracle..

life is suffering. it's not just the pharmakon and fucking capitalism. it's not *anything.* it's just life.