When I first heard Matthias saying what you have transcribed here, it was from an interview he did with Chris Martenson last month. I haven't watched the interview with Ivor Cummins yet, but the parts you transcribed were the same parts I was very inspired to write about. . . As a lay Buddhist, living many years in Thailand, the aura of the culture, the whole country, is saturated with the idea that everything of the material world is impermanent, that all living beings at some time suffer and that there is no such thing as a permanent self. Meaning, we are each responsible for our choices, and our suffering. In other words, the permanence of the self, as a material being, defined, designed and subjected to the --lets' say technological system-- is our choice. The rational mind directing that choice, also directs the limitation to go beyond the self as a reflection of the system, can inevitably cause suffering to not only that person, but to society. Is with mass formation? I think so. As a Western academic, the rational mind--as Matthais states and you write--must be transmuted, to the self-realization that we are part of a brilliant cosmos filled with tremendous unknowns. To make this short, when we can live with that idea, that there is birth, sickness, death and to some rebirth, and that in living and breathing with the impermanence of life, then we can start to free ourselves from the limits, the dependence and the illusions in who we are as strictly mechanical followers.
This shift from rational to irrational reminds me very much of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where Robert Pirsig describes the difference between knowing the theory of combustion engines, the transmission of power from engine to wheels through mechanical means, and the mechanics of balance and steering, versus knowing what it feels like to ride a motorcycle. You have to learn at least enough of the rational side to get to experience the irrational side. That's what it made me think of, at least. :-)
When I first heard Matthias saying what you have transcribed here, it was from an interview he did with Chris Martenson last month. I haven't watched the interview with Ivor Cummins yet, but the parts you transcribed were the same parts I was very inspired to write about. . . As a lay Buddhist, living many years in Thailand, the aura of the culture, the whole country, is saturated with the idea that everything of the material world is impermanent, that all living beings at some time suffer and that there is no such thing as a permanent self. Meaning, we are each responsible for our choices, and our suffering. In other words, the permanence of the self, as a material being, defined, designed and subjected to the --lets' say technological system-- is our choice. The rational mind directing that choice, also directs the limitation to go beyond the self as a reflection of the system, can inevitably cause suffering to not only that person, but to society. Is with mass formation? I think so. As a Western academic, the rational mind--as Matthais states and you write--must be transmuted, to the self-realization that we are part of a brilliant cosmos filled with tremendous unknowns. To make this short, when we can live with that idea, that there is birth, sickness, death and to some rebirth, and that in living and breathing with the impermanence of life, then we can start to free ourselves from the limits, the dependence and the illusions in who we are as strictly mechanical followers.
This shift from rational to irrational reminds me very much of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where Robert Pirsig describes the difference between knowing the theory of combustion engines, the transmission of power from engine to wheels through mechanical means, and the mechanics of balance and steering, versus knowing what it feels like to ride a motorcycle. You have to learn at least enough of the rational side to get to experience the irrational side. That's what it made me think of, at least. :-)