Discussion Three: The Game Of Black And White

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16 years 10 months ago #2586 by
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16 years 10 months ago #2619 by Garm
Br. John, are you looking for our comments / views on this chapter 'the game of black and white' ?
Lenny
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16 years 10 months ago #2620 by
Lenny wrote:

Br. John, are you looking for our comments / views on this chapter 'the game of black and white' ?
Lenny


Yes - comments and discussion. This is a keystone topic on the nature of dark / light/

Br. John
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16 years 10 months ago #2621 by Garm
The main body of this chapter handles the topic of dualism, to me it’s as simple as black and white (pardon the pun) most familiar to us in the Chinese symbol of the ultimate principle of all things the “Yin-Yang”. The origin of all polarities – male and female, light and dark, outer and inner, self and other, hot and cold, good and evil, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, no need to go on. The symbol represents their unity, clearly distinguishable, but interdependent.

As the chapter moves on the topic seems to shift to the subject of fear. I thought the paper has more to do with the above dualism, but I will express what the text says to me.

“Human beings, especially in Western civilization, make death the great bogy. This has something to do with popular Christian belief that death will be followed by the dread Last Judgment.” - (This only manifests as fear. Fear of one’s end producing anxiety that will haunt your very being, always at the back of one’s mind, never allowing the freedom to truly experience the natural harmony of our existence.)

“Imagination cannot grasp simple nothingness and must therefore fill the void with fantasies. \ When death is considered the finial victory of black over white in the deadly serious battle of ‘white must win’, the fantasies which fill the void are largely ghoulish. Even our popular fantasies of heaven are on the grim side, because the usual image of God is of a very serious and awesome Grandfather, enthroned in a colossal church.”
(This is again Fear of the end. A finial judgment by a being based on their viewpoint, in most views there is no rebuttal allowed)

“Death as such is not a sickness at all. It is the natural and necessary end of human life.”
(And may I add, not just human life, but all life. It is the inevitable conclusion of all living things, one that we cannot outrun.)

“As we now regard death this reads reads like a prescription for a nightmare.”
(Exactly… product of fear)

“Friends should gather at the deathbed to help one out one’s mortal role, to applaud the show, and even more, to celebrate with champagne or sacraments the great awakening of death.”
(ok, even for me, this metaphor is a little too happy, but as we see in the Jedi teachings ‘Jedi believe in eternal life. We do not become obsessed in mourning those who pass. Grieve as you will but take heart, for the soul and spirit continue in the netherworld of the Living Force.’)

I do not pretend to have special insight to any of these questions, however my belief in the force backed up with prior practice and life experience allows me to focus on and enjoy the present, free from the burden of unanswerable worries. The truth isn’t theoretical, but experiential and useful; what you can observe and experience yourself and test in your own lifetime. No leap of faith required.

I have to ask…does anyone here fear the force? I would be surprised if there is anyone among us that would answer yes. We do not fear the force because it is a naturally occurring energy that envelopes us all, believers and non-believers alike, it exists regardless. We may not completely understand it but we do not fear it. Why is this? Because in the end our life essence will be welcomed back into its web, no strings attached (read no judgment), follower of the light, or the dark, it matters not. This is the simple beauty of nature itself. How we choose to live our lives is entirely our own to make. eg. Our topic of white vs. black, the two will always be with us. The way we live in the world of the present should be our focus, free from fear of where we move onto after. I don’t know, maybe there is an afterlife, reincarnation, paradise, what ever your taste, then again, maybe not. I do not see the sense of any faith instilling crippling psychological fear over it.

The incorporation of theories and viewpoints from many spiritual paths will help mold Jediism, but I think that the Jedi way must eventually transcend all mainstream religions (including mine) and stand on its own, free from all the fears that tag along with some beliefs. If we fail in this then we offer nothing new or unique, only a rehash of some existing faith wrapped up in a new ribbon.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Walk in the Force.
Lenny
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16 years 10 months ago #2624 by Garm
OOPS! just noticed the question at the end...let me look at this a bit longer...
Lenny
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16 years 10 months ago #2629 by
I believe that we only focus on that which directly applies to us as individuals. We at times do look to an image or form of a higher being such as God or any of the lessers (I know, and I'm sorry but that's how I was raised) but we still maintain the fact that we are real and and unless we can touch, feel, and see it; then it doesn't matter. Besides, nowadays those of us that still hold on to religious or Christian beliefs are believed to be living in the dark ages. Now we have science that can prove or disprove anything. Haven't you noticed how many articles there have been lately on the existence of God? I still hold on to the whole idea of the Force being one in association with the Holy Spirit, just maybe a different name or interpretation. So thats why I believe in it.
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16 years 9 months ago #2736 by
One of the main things I gathered from this reading is something we have discussed before and continue to. That is that there is the duality of the Force and it being one in and of it's self. Light Side, Dark Side, there is the Force and the Force only. The individual controls the perception. We, as the Light Side, can not exterminate the Dark Side without in turn exterminating ourselves. Without a Dark Side, there would be no Light Side. The Force is the balance. Both sides have to be in order for there to \"be\" at all. What we choose to do in our actions defines us as Force sensitives.

Welcoming death as an extention of life is something, in a way, of what my friends and I have done for several years. Yes, we mourn the loss of the one that has passed on before us, but then we hold a wake to celebrate the life of the one that passed on before us. We charish the memories of all the things we got to experience because that individual was a part of our lives. Why should we fear what is considered our life's end? If you believe our teachings that death is a natural part of life and you will continue to live on in the afterlife of the Living and Unifing Force, what is there to fear? In a manner of speaking, you are becoming more than you already are by joining the Force again. You aren't leaving the life you've had, you are just returning to that from which you came. How can you fear going home? As far as fear is concerned, I believe Br Lenny has covered that enough that I shouldn't repeat what he has already so well put.
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16 years 9 months ago #2738 by
\"If, then, there is this basic unity between self and other, individual and universe, how have our minds become so narrow that we don't know it?\"

Our minds start to become narrow from the day we are born. Our field of view is shaped by our parents to start with as happened with their parents at their birth and so on and so forth. They start teaching us their belief system, morals, and what is accepted as proper behavior in the world. Then we reach the age to attend pre-school and school. Society begins to take it's turn at focusing our view on the current and accepted ways of thinking. We start to wear blinders as if we were some kind of plow horse or race horse to keep us looking in one small, straight ahead view. We are taught there is no need to look side to side, just focus on whats in front of you. Unconsciencely, we accept that what is put before us is all there is. We become so programmed we don't know any better. It is just the accepted way of thinking, that there is only the individual, only self and any one saying otherwise is a crackpot or radical. We are but the product of what we are taught and very few have the strength and power to look beyond the individual self at the \"big picture\" of the unity of self and other, individual and universe.
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16 years 9 months ago #2807 by
Again, a very well chosen piece. I find his analysis of the cause effect, on and off, yes and no mentality of the majority of our race to very accurate. We think so heavily in parts of disconnected nature that we never realize how they connect, and not even in the head-tailed cat version but how my the collapsing of a mountain relates to the shifting of the sands on a beach or how my choice to go to college effects the metalsmithing field. Our causes and effects are always so cut and dry and so “1 then 2” that we forget that sometimes “1 goes to 8” and “a goes to 205” and “skin goes to plastic” and in the end it’s the spaces between those events that define the nature of their relationship. In a lot of case I think this space is dictated by choice. The closer the events get the less so, such as in head-tailed cat whereas there is no choice, the cat simply is. But as we start drawing our connections from things that are farther and farther apart we find that it’s a matter of choice that drives those connections. People claim cause and effect to be a never ending process that dominates everything. I don’t disagree, but I have always felt that a large portion of the flow of cause-effect is choice, and after reading this I feel that the spaces between are often more important. I have always been one for the journey, as the outcome is often over-thought of, completely understood, and expected, and we analyze it so much in starting that we know it before we arrive. I’ll do my fair share of analysis of the goal but once I’ve settled on the goal I like its all about the ride to get there.

The later part of this article about wandering and traveling and the ever contraining nature of things reminded me of a movie, which I believe was called Interstate 55 and involved an odd red headed man with a monkey-pipe that let out green smoke…

In the end I found this to be something I very much relate to. In one aspect of which, I am often called a pessimistic, and even in some cases an optimist. I can’t surely be both, that would be contradictory. Instead I am a realist. I am the middle ground. And between me and the ends are even more middle grounds until the polar chart becomes a scale and further evolves into a spectrum. To the optimists I am a pessimist and to the pessimists I am an optimist, but to myself I am simply trying to be as honest with myself and others as I possibly can. This isn’t to stay I don’t float a bit between, settling at times and wavering at others. I like this idea of continuity because it relates to how I’ve always tried to understand the universe.

As a last note I might echo Watt’s last line. “If, then, there is this basic unity between self and other, individual and universe, how have our minds become so narrow that we don’t know it?”

The concept of a narrow mind is something I wish to ever evade but I find myself slipping into it at times, hopefully more often then not slipping back out of it. I think that avoiding a narrow mind is one and akin with “There is no ignorance; there is knowledge” because it allows us the capacity to vanquish a weakened state of intellect for a better one.
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