2009.01.01 01:00 - Beer, Francis & Phenomenology

 

((** The discussion started with a world tour of beers. Thus fortified, Pema went on the offensive, pressing the Franciscan Geo to make connections between the Franciscan emphasis on the experiential (Franciscan vs. Aristotelian-Thomistic, one example: http://books.google.com/books?id=38YUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=Experiential+Franciscan&source=bl&ots=OueQJl50NL&sig=mQ3_yeF_Cyypt6rGGNG_jIxGo7M&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA3,M1 ) and the Franciscan sense of the connectedness of all creation expressed in the Canticle of the Sun. Thus firmly reconnected to his lesser brother roots, Geo waffled on the suggestion that phenomenology might, somehow, be involved. Editor’s note: Geo speaks on his own, does not represent any official position and acknowledges that there is a healthy diversity of opinion with the Franciscan family. **))

Geo Netizen: Hi Tarmel

Tarmel Udimo: hi there

Geo Netizen: Happy New Year :)

Tarmel Udimo: yes happy new year

Tarmel Udimo: have you slipped into 2009 yet?

Geo Netizen: Yes .... it is 3 am here

Geo Netizen: So many from lasts night's (7 pm) meeting were already in 2009

Geo Netizen: It was kind of interesting ... people made a point of greeting from one year to the next

Geo Netizen: Hi Pema

Geo Netizen: Happy New Year

Pema Pera: Hi Tarmel and Geo!

 

Tarmel Udimo: hi pema

 

Pema Pera: Happy New Year to you both too!

Tarmel Udimo: yes happy New Year

Tarmel Udimo: how were the beer(s)?

Pema Pera: was great, thanks :-)

Pema Pera: yebisu on tap this afternoon :-)

((** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapporo_Brewery **))

Pema Pera: quite unusual, even in Japan

Tarmel Udimo: oh so you're still in Japan?

Pema Pera: New Years day is the big day for eating food in Japan, like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined . . . .

Pema Pera: yes

Tarmel Udimo: would love o be there one day

Geo Netizen: So ... 6 pm for you .... you must be stuffed :)

Pema Pera: Yesterday evening a Spanish beer, and I have to agree with you that sometimes warm countries can produce a good beer; this one was Voll Damm

((** http://www.volldamm.es/index.asp **))

Pema Pera: highly recommended!

Tarmel Udimo: grins

Pema Pera: yes, Geo, pretty much

Pema Pera: (I'll try Red Stripe, when I get a chance, Tarmel)

((** http://www.redstripebeer.com/about.html **))

Tarmel Udimo: yeah check it out...

Tarmel Udimo: very light

Tarmel Udimo: refreshing and best served cold

Pema Pera: warm country beers tend to be lighter, perhaps because people need to drink more liquids?

Tarmel Udimo: gd point

 

Tarmel Udimo: smiles

 

Pema Pera: not that Northern Europeans are not known for drinking lots of beer . . . .

Tarmel Udimo: hehehe

Tarmel Udimo: the Dutch I think are quite good at it?

Tarmel Udimo: smiles

Pema Pera: far too much, sadly so

Pema Pera: far beyond enjoying . . .

Tarmel Udimo: yep its like that in OZ...

Tarmel Udimo: oh I forgot - I put up the logs, but the formatting is not good might need to be looked at

Pema Pera: thank you!

Pema Pera: Perhaps you could ask Storm Nordwind?

Pema Pera: Or any of the other guardians whose format looks right :)

Tarmel Udimo: okay

Pema Pera: (I could help you too, but so many other things to do already :(

Tarmel Udimo: no worries

Tarmel Udimo: would normally ask WOL, but wol not here so will find another victim ;-)

Pema Pera: Geo, I really enjoyed our conversation about the Cloud of Unknowing and related topics -- we ended at the question the role of the experiencer. Shall we pick up from there again, for a bit?

Geo Netizen: If you like .... I'm still processing the term experiencer

Geo Netizen: It’s new in my context

Pema Pera: you preferred that over observer, if I remember correctly

Pema Pera: we can also say "subject" or "self"

Geo Netizen: I think it does better capture what is being discussed

Pema Pera: for me, the practice consequence is that a focus on appearance can go beyond experience, strange as it may sound

Geo Netizen: The term observer is too passive

Pema Pera: in the sense that in some kind of epiphanies, grace, or whatever word we want to use, the distinction between experiencer and experienced can drop away

Pema Pera: yes

Pema Pera: or just in normal happy elation, like walking in a beautiful landscape, where you can "fall into"

Pema Pera: or in dancing, in listening to great music, etc.

Pema Pera: if I were to put words to that, I'd say that what appears comes to the fore, and the structure of experiencer experiencing something experienced drops to the background

Pema Pera: does that sound familiar, recognizable?

Pema Pera: *that appearance comes to the fore

Pema Pera: the very appearing of what appears is a kind of bliss, elation

Geo Netizen: The experiencer is affected by the experience

Geo Netizen: as in beautiful landscape

Pema Pera: perhaps both are affected by something else?

Geo Netizen: great music

Geo Netizen: It has been interesting to read the logs of those experimenting with

Geo Netizen: appearance from an inanimate object’s perspective

Geo Netizen: I've been trying to relate that to our practice of contemplation

Pema Pera: I would love to hear more about that, Geo! But before we lose the above thread:

Pema Pera: may I go back to "The experiencer is affected by the experience"? That strikes me as still a bit too self-centered . . . only one side of the situation; it is equally true that the experience can become deeper when the experiencer opens up -- it seems to me that the two are reciprocal, and that it may be limiting to start from the position of the experiencer, as if that is a given core self; does that make sense?

Pema Pera: so the experiencer can affect the experience as well as the other way around

Pema Pera: neither are fundamental -- we can switch to appearance as more fundamental, more directly given

Pema Pera: but perhaps you see that differently?

Geo Netizen: Yes ... I agree with you point about affect

Geo Netizen: Both are part of a whole that is in some way integral

Geo Netizen: fundamentally connected

Pema Pera: yes, and we tend to hide in the subject pole, like a turtle . . . :)

Pema Pera: the s/o reversal (subject/object reversal) experiment tries to heal that disease a bit . . .

Pema Pera: sorry, you wrote "I've been trying to relate that to our practice of contemplation", could you elaborate on that?

Geo Netizen: to contemplate is very different than to meditate

Pema Pera: (depending on how you define the words; there are many definitions floating around...)

Geo Netizen: s/o reversal is a fresh way to look at that difference

Geo Netizen: (I'm talking out of my tradition of contemplation)

Pema Pera: can you say more about that?

Geo Netizen: Meditation is a deep reflection on something

Geo Netizen: to contemplate is to enter into and

Geo Netizen: seems very similar to the idea of s/o reversal

Geo Netizen: or what we try to do in contemplation

Pema Pera: yes, like being naked for God

Geo Netizen: I may meditate on love of enemy .... think deeply and profoundly and that is good.

Geo Netizen: to contemplate ... I must enter into .... be the enemy .... feel them

Geo Netizen: then reflect on love

Pema Pera: Thanks for sharing those definitions, yes, they make sense, and are probably common in medieval mysticism (Buddhist meditation is clearly defined differently).

Geo Netizen nods

Pema Pera: would it be fair to say that meditation and contemplation are like

Pema Pera: admiration and imitation

Pema Pera: as in imitatio Christi?

((** http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/imitation/imitation.html **))

Geo Netizen: in a way but one would not necessarily want to imitate what you are contemplating

Pema Pera: yes, there are different ways of imitating, I guess

Geo Netizen: I think of suicide bombers who detonates in a crowed market

Pema Pera: if you really try to live as Christ may have lived, then it can become contemplation -- do I understand that right?

Pema Pera: entering through the portal of imitation?

Geo Netizen: I must entering their experience if I am to achieve a true love of them as I am called to do.

Geo Netizen: Yet I would certainly not suggest any imitation

Pema Pera: I was specifically thinking about imitatio Christi, not imitating anybody :-)

Pema Pera: but to understand better your distinction

Pema Pera: there are two ways of relating to Christ, if I understand correctly,

Pema Pera: or at least these two

Geo Netizen: I see

Pema Pera: to view everyone one encounters as Christ

Pema Pera: or to try to live as Christ would have lived

Pema Pera: a kind of subject and object version of the same idea

Pema Pera: is either one comparable to contemplation, or could it be?

Geo Netizen: Contemplation is a tool to see the divine in others and

Geo Netizen: to help us live as we believe we should live.

Geo Netizen: So .... I think it is yes to both

Pema Pera: The first is like what Jesus said about the last judgment and the second is like Thomas a Kempis, who wrote Imitatio Christi

Pema Pera: thanks, Geo!

Pema Pera: it is so inspiring to hear these angles from Christianity

Pema Pera: many people I meet seem to think they can only find it in Buddhism . . . .

Geo Netizen nods

Geo Netizen: My puzzle is that is seems almost like the same thing in s/o reversal …

Geo Netizen: but practicing it for inanimate objects ... not sure yet

Pema Pera: as for s/o reversal, when I let myself become the object, with respect to anything really, it is in a sense like "become naked for God", handing over the reigns -- does that make any sense?

Geo Netizen: I see the experiments with the spoon as trying to do that

Pema Pera: the inanimate objects are also part of God's creation

Pema Pera: brother Sun, sister Moon . . . .

((** Reference to Canticle of the Sun by Francis of Assisi, both Latin and English: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/stfran-canticle.txt **))

Geo Netizen: Yes .... I see the point but .... don't yet understand the point.

Geo Netizen smiles

Tarmel Udimo: i think subject/object are one and the same thing...

Geo Netizen: Yes ... I am very proud of our tradition there, I admit

Pema Pera: I am proud of it too :-)

Geo Netizen: and that's part of the connection I been looking at

Pema Pera: yes, Tarmel?

Tarmel Udimo: just that - i noticed in the stillness that it was the same

Geo Netizen: But, Tarmel, that actually raises one of my concerns and that is my belief that you are an eternally unique being ….

Pema Pera: they cannot be separated, indeed . . .

Geo Netizen: so talk of all one and the same …

Tarmel Udimo: yes and does saying they are one and the same change that

Geo Netizen: which is the main point of divergence from Buddhism I think

Geo Netizen: puzzles me

 

Tarmel Udimo: okay

 

Pema Pera: unique does not have to mean separately existing

Pema Pera: and all connected does not mean not unique

Geo Netizen: Very true

Pema Pera: it strikes me that there are two rather different angles at play here

Geo Netizen: and yes ... connectedness is a very familiar point

Pema Pera: Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,

Pema Pera: Happy those she finds doing your most holy will.

The second death can do no harm to them.

Pema Pera: (from Francis' song)

Pema Pera: the s/o reversal can be a preparation for the first death

Geo Netizen: Yes ... the last stanza

Pema Pera: giving up the narrow self-clinging of the habitual subject-identification

Pema Pera: by allowing, *daring* to take an object role

Geo Netizen: But again ... it seems that is just what we are trying to do in our practice of contemplation

Pema Pera: yes!

Geo Netizen: yet currently, we are not doing it for inanimate

Pema Pera: Francis does . . .

Geo Netizen: yet as you point out Pema, that would be a natural for us

Pema Pera: Sister Water, Brother Fire

Pema Pera: Sister Spoon :-)

Geo Netizen smiles

Tarmel Udimo: smiles

Pema Pera: How praised thou art for giving us food!

Tarmel Udimo: I used to believe very strongly in God and the christian approach

Pema Pera: what changed, Tarmel?

Geo Netizen: There may even be a paper in the topic :))

Tarmel Udimo: grins

Geo Netizen listens

Pema Pera: I'm game, Geo!

Pema Pera: any time

Geo Netizen: I think many of my fellow Franciscans would be very interested in the connection

Pema Pera: I'd love to write a paper with you about that, Geo

Tarmel Udimo: to answer that question pema will require much effort working my way back through the back brain but i will answer it at some point

Pema Pera: you can just email me some paragraphs, I can email you some back, and we can let it grow

Pema Pera: sure, Tarmel, no rush!

 

Pema Pera: whenever it feels right

Pema Pera: for me, if I may Geo, Francis was very close to being a Taoist

((** For a taste: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:TvbjntxP8KkJ:www.loveministries.org/birdflow.doc+Franciscan+Taoist&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us **))

Pema Pera: sharing many of the sensibilities

Geo Netizen smiles

Pema Pera: and he was practical!

Pema Pera: everything he tested

Pema Pera: love that story when he meets Muslims

Pema Pera: debating with an Islamic pundit

Pema Pera: do you remember the details, Geo?

Geo Netizen: He also borrowed heavily from Islamic Sufis

Pema Pera: he did?

Pema Pera: Didn't know that!

Pema Pera: That's wonderful!!

Geo Netizen: Yes ... a brother recently drew many interesting connections between Sufis practices at the time

((** A short example among others of the possibility: http://mysticsaint.blogspot.com/2008/01/saint-francis-of-assisi-meets-shams.html **))

Geo Netizen: and things Francis introduced after he returned form that visit

Pema Pera: WOW WOW ! ! ! I'd love to hear about that

Pema Pera: that feels like hearing that two dear friends fell in love with each other !!

Pema Pera: how nice!

Geo Netizen: I'm sure I still have that article but may have to scan and email since I don't think it is online

Tarmel Udimo: I'd love to read it tooo

Geo Netizen: Yes ... very much so is my understanding

Geo Netizen: We refer to it as our Franciscan Muslim roots

Pema Pera: I was referring to a story I read about Francis having a dialogue with an Islamic counter part

Pema Pera: and since they couldn't agree

Pema Pera: Francis invited his Islamic debate partner

Pema Pera: to walk into the fire, to see whom God would protect

Pema Pera: (very unfair move by a Taoist!)

Tarmel Udimo: yes very unfair

Pema Pera: the other declined . . .

Pema Pera: the Sultan was very impressed

Pema Pera: well if Fire is really your Brother, you can do that . . . .

Geo Netizen: Yes .... and I believe Francis left very impressed with the Sultan and the Sufis

Pema Pera: that part I didn't know -- very much looking forward to reading about that

Pema Pera: as for "a paper" just send me whatever you like -- or we could start writing it on the PaB wiki, either way

Pema Pera: How about syncing our schedules and meeting in Assisi to write our paper?

Tarmel Udimo: this has been most interesting - I am being called for dinner and must go

Pema Pera: (I'm serious!)

Pema Pera: yeah, dinner time here too, Tarmel :-)

Geo Netizen: Bye Tarmel .... so glad you could be here

Pema Pera: How shall we post the log?

Pema Pera: yes, thank you both!

Tarmel Udimo: geo can you send me some info about you and your order?

Tarmel Udimo: as i am in the dark and would rather be in the light ;-)

Geo Netizen: Yes .... through I happen to be a bit odd in my situation :)

Tarmel Udimo: yes?

 

Pema Pera: odd?

 

Tarmel Udimo: can you say more?

Geo Netizen: Third Order Seculars usually don't live conventually

Tarmel Udimo: nods

Geo Netizen: and usually aren't attached to a Diocese

Tarmel Udimo: looking up Third Order Seculars..

Pema Pera musing on "conventionally" and "convent" . . . .

Pema Pera: http://www.tssf.org/

 

((** The above link is for Anglican Franciscans **))

((** The International Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order: http://www.ciofs.org/en.htm **))

Geo Netizen: so I have unique possibilities that I enjoy

Pema Pera: (Geo, would you mind putting up the chat log?)

Pema Pera: (or shall I do it?)

Tarmel Udimo: in the world and not of the world

Pema Pera: yes

Geo Netizen: I can do it .... I did volunteer

Pema Pera: thanks a lot, Geo!

Geo Netizen nods

Geo Netizen: exactly Tarmel

Pema Pera: to be continued!

Tarmel Udimo: ciao

 

Pema Pera: ciao!

 

Geo Netizen: Bye

Pema Pera is Offline

Tarmel Udimo: will you be okay on your own ;-)

Geo Netizen: Yes .... thanks for asking

Geo Netizen: It was so good to have you here

Tarmel Udimo: yes it felt good just to listen

Geo Netizen: pax et bonum Tarmel :)

Tarmel Udimo: all good and peaceful - yes

Tarmel Udimo: bye

Geo Netizen smiles

Geo Netizen: bye