I was driving to downtown to catch a show in the evening while listening to the Teaching Company¡¯s philosophy course ¡°Questions of Value¡±. The voice of Professor Patrick Grim from SUNY has a soothing, almost hypnotizing effect. Typically I would be a little put off by it, but his relaxed manner puts me at ease. He presents his arguments well and doesn¡¯t seem to try too hard to make you agree with him, so listening to his course is more like having a casual conversation with a mentor.
That day¡¯s topic is ¡°the objective side of value¡±. One of the arguments in it concerns about the intrinsic value of beauty. The professor calls it ¡°the Grand Canyon argument¡±. As an Arizonian I was pleasantly surprised that out of all the natural wonders he chooses this particular one to present his case. The argument goes like this:
1. First, we imagine a universe with planets that have the beauty of sunrise over the Grand Canyon.
2. Next, we imagine a universe with nothing but smog in the dark.
3. If the first universe is better than the second, beauty itself has intrinsic value --- even if unperceived.
I understand his dilemma: who am I to say something as phenomenal as the Grand Canyon has no values, simply because I am not there to witness it? But to me, value is always attached to perception. Saying something has ¡°no values¡± doesn¡¯t necessarily carry a negative connotation --- it simply means that, since there is no human beings or any other living things around, there is no value system to pass judgements on it. Vibrant-colored or smog, it no longer matters.
¡°I don¡¯t agree, Professor!¡± Under the desert stars I shouted to the stereo. The Grand Canyon has no values if unperceived, but the loss is all ours. Too bad we are not around to appreciate it, what a shame.
+++++
Bill Porter, a.k.a. Red Pine, is an interesting dude. He dropped out of a PHD program at Columbia University and spent the next two decades living and learning Buddhism in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. I am always drawn to people who make unconventional choices, but initially I didn¡¯t bother to check out his English translation and commentary of the Heart Sutra. I had a bias. Although I don¡¯t know Sanskrit or Pali, I can read Chinese, and sure Chinese translations of the texts on Eastern religions are closer to the original text than those translated by the Westerners?
But I came out of my search empty-handed. Materials from the internet and pamphlets from the local Buddhist communities proved uninspiring: too much superstition, too much concern about reincarnation, not enough substance. So here I am reading Red Pine¡¯s book.
The Heart Sutra begins by stating that the five Skandhas are empty of self-existence. It further emphasizes that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. A little bit of background information: the five Skandhas are form, sensation, perception, memory and consciousness, the five ways we experience the world. Emptiness doesn¡¯t mean non-existence, but means lack of self-sustainable existence. Form --- the first one of the five Skandhas --- is not the objects themselves but how we experience them with our sensory organs.
I¡¯ve begun to comprehend the ¡°emptiness¡± of sensation, perception, memory and consciousness, but I had problem with ¡°form¡±. Sure there are things we cannot see that actually exist and things we can see that are actually illusions. But 90% of the time we can accurately detect the objective world. Why claim that all forms are empty?
But hey, I didn¡¯t plan to affiliate myself with any religion, I was willing to dismiss it as some sort of ancient sentiment.
+++++
The book ¡°Unweaving the Rainbow¡± is written by none other than the renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, famous for his ¡°the Selfish Genes¡±, and recommended by none other than our beloved Java bean Fu Sheng. It has been a fun read before bed.
A few chapters touch on how the cells of the retina are evolved and how the brain interprets the signal inputs from these cells. ¡°The colors that we actually experience, the subjective sensations of redness and blueness, are arbitrary labels that our brains tie to light of different wavelengths.¡± ¡°The hues that would great any traveler to another world would be a function of the brains that they bring with them from the home planet.¡±
Suddenly it hit me: Not only that the Grand Canyon has no values, there is no such thing as a vibrant colored Grand Canyon at all. Without the sensory of the human eyes and the perceptions of the human brains it has no colors as we know them. The image perceived by another life form could be vastly different from what we see, depending on how the optical system of this life form is constructed and evolved over time. And this applies to all other sensory systems.
And this must be what the Heart Sutra means. I quickly browse through the pages:
In emptiness there is no form,
No sensation, no perception, no memory and no consciousness;
No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind;
No shape, no sound, no smell, no taste, no feeling and no thought;
No element of perception, from eye to conceptual consciousness;
¡.
Without walls of the mind and thus without fears,
They see through delusions and finally nirvana.
Everything fits. Everything makes sense. I was stunned, spellbound. It was the middle of the night so I couldn¡¯t make too much sound, but the emotion was so overwhelming that I had to roam about the house in the dark trying to choke it back. ¡°Seek, and you shall find.¡± I sought, and I found. Out of the ecstasy came such clarity, and gradually, out of clarity, came peace.
- Re: Notes from the cocoon yearsposted on 06/25/2009
Did you write this stuff or you quote it?
The problem with value is it always stands in between a valuing subject and a valued object. - Re: Notes from the cocoon yearsposted on 06/25/2009
Which stuff? I wrote the stuff with a lot of quotes in it. :-)
touche wrote:
Did you write this stuff or you quote it?
- Re: Notes from the cocoon yearsposted on 06/26/2009
You think you reached nirvana yet? :-)
To me, totally ignorant, Buddhism has its seductive features. But Ia m just too lazy to acquaint myself to its basic tenets.
Enjoyed reading the piece.
Susan wrote:
- Re: Notes from the cocoon yearsposted on 06/26/2009
Thanks. :-) No I haven't reached nirvana. :)
tar wrote:
You think you reached nirvana yet? :-)
To me, totally ignorant, Buddhism has its seductive features. But Ia m just too lazy to acquaint myself to its basic tenets.
Enjoyed reading the piece.
Susan wrote:
- Re: Notes from the cocoon yearsposted on 06/26/2009
Will you ever? Nirvana is unattainable, ...
Susan wrote:
Thanks. :-) No I haven't reached nirvana. :)
tar wrote:
You think you reached nirvana yet? :-)
To me, totally ignorant, Buddhism has its seductive features. But Ia m just too lazy to acquaint myself to its basic tenets.
Enjoyed reading the piece.
Susan wrote:
- Re: Notes from the cocoon yearsposted on 07/20/2009
I don¡¯t know, we will see. :-)
moab wrote:
Will you ever? Nirvana is unattainable, ...
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