Yeah, sutric Buddhism is plenty life denying. You could say its about seeing that form is emptiness. It is. But the Heart Sutra adds: emptiness is form. Supposedly, arahants have a heart attack upon hearing that second bit.
Your writing is engaging and the topic is a good one. I would guess however that the Buddha would agree with a lot of it. Especially that "Love is not merely a collection of sensations. Like the puddle and your aunt Lucy, the atoms of the experience don’t make the experience; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
The point of the reductionism is to shift focus away from the parts and to the whole. It's a movement away from possessions and towards generosity of mind and body. The act of dividing up the body, our emotions and our sense of self is just for that reason: to shift us out of the "me/mine" attitude and into a less possessive (bigger picture) form of Love.
Ooh that's a reframe and a half! Interesting to change the scope of the "whole" in question. You're saying that the whole that is being dissolve is keeping its parts from being part of a greater whole. It's an interesting rhetorical move! I'll have to contemplate that a bit more but that's a delightfully unexpected flip thank you for that!
Yeah, sutric Buddhism is plenty life denying. You could say its about seeing that form is emptiness. It is. But the Heart Sutra adds: emptiness is form. Supposedly, arahants have a heart attack upon hearing that second bit.
Haha poor arahants 😆
What a beautiful article
Your writing is engaging and the topic is a good one. I would guess however that the Buddha would agree with a lot of it. Especially that "Love is not merely a collection of sensations. Like the puddle and your aunt Lucy, the atoms of the experience don’t make the experience; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
The point of the reductionism is to shift focus away from the parts and to the whole. It's a movement away from possessions and towards generosity of mind and body. The act of dividing up the body, our emotions and our sense of self is just for that reason: to shift us out of the "me/mine" attitude and into a less possessive (bigger picture) form of Love.
Ooh that's a reframe and a half! Interesting to change the scope of the "whole" in question. You're saying that the whole that is being dissolve is keeping its parts from being part of a greater whole. It's an interesting rhetorical move! I'll have to contemplate that a bit more but that's a delightfully unexpected flip thank you for that!