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    • AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
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from 2023 Year End Review/Part 2
from The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism
  • The book suggests that Zen presents an alternative to Hegel's most famous bit, the masterslaving, in which human thought and activity is presented as foundationally a struggle for dominance. Instead, Zen cultivates an attitude of friendliness, a radically different stance. The master/slave stuff is part of the Western character, an aspect of its interiority. Zen by contrast de-emphasizes interiority in favor of relationship and openness.
from The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism
  • Satori is the other of selfhood, the other of inwardness, but it is not an outwardness or alienation. Rather, it involves the overcoming of the distinction between 'inward' and 'outward'. Spirit de-internalizes itself in an indifference, even in friendliness. (p47)

friendliness

04 Sep 2023 - 27 Jul 2025
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    • He contrasts it with the masterslaving of Hegel. In MS, two minds encounter one another and fight to be The Mind, more or less (my understanding of Hegel is cartoonish at best). This is demanded by Western interiority. In Zen, there is no interior, just openness and relationship, permitting a different kind of stance.
    • Sounds great but now I start to wonder if its an apt word. When I think of friendship, its relational, a multi-party interaction. "Friendliness" is just a facade (oh god its trite but CA friendliness is so much that, compared to east coast culture).
    • Not to throw shade on the concept, just the word. Maybe "openness" is better, but friendliness engages something more. Minds can be open but friendliness engages the soul .
    • He suspends himself in that emptiness where there is no difference between the I and the other.
      • p84 – that section is quite a magical piece of writing. Ref to I and Thou
    • The Hegelian alternative looks extremely pathological as described.
    • Assigning absolute value to one's own [property?] is quite opposed to the generosity that expresses original friendliness, which rests on selflessness and propertyless being. [p85)]
      • where "property" means more like "what is proper to myself", which is an interesting wordplay.
      • In my desire to posit myself as the exclusive totality, I must seek the death of the other. In doing so, however, I expose myself to the danger of death. I not only risk injury but put my whole existance at stake....
    • Ah:
      • The essence of friend is therefore that he is my friend. He is a representation of the I. By contrast, the emptiness from which original friendliness flows de-mirrors that self-based relationship with the other by de-internalizing and emptying out the I. (p90)
        • Cue the Hendrix RoomfulOfMirrors