From: <Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 13:06:38 +0200
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Zen
To me the importance of Zen - and of meditation techniques in general - is that
it can free us - temporarily - of our ongoing train of thoughts. In that way it
is a useful solution to get rid of the emotional burdeon which our thinking
puts on us:
http://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/webstaf/hanss/nature.htm
Bill Benzon wrote:
> At 2:03 AM 4/9/99 +0100, Chris Lees wrote:
>
> >
> >Unfortunately, L. Gabora only touches what zen meditation is about in this
> >brief and
> >superficial way. There is a vast body of work - from Nagarjuna, to Hua Yen
> >metaphysics, to Dogen, etc., etc., - which could be drawn upon.I wonder if
> >anyone
> >is working on it, and if not , why not.
>
> I'm not sure what you're getting at. Whatever memetics is, it is not an
> intellectually mature activity. As you can see from recent postings, there
> is fundamental disagreement on the meaning and use of basic terminology.
>
> So what is the relevance of Zen meditation to memetics? On the one hand,
> Zen meditation is a cultural phenomenon. A memeticist might be interested
> in studying how the doctrines and techniques of Zen meditation originated
> and spread.
>
> That discussion would be rather different from the one in which you have
> become embroiled, which has to do with the existence and status of
> something called a self. Within memetics that discussion has to do with
> agency. Put crudely, is human behavior caused by the self or by memes?
> One need not, of course, conceive of the issue as a dichotomy. That
> particular issue has been extensively discussed on this list without,
> however, any consensus having been reached. That discussion has taken
> place without reference to Zen Buddhism.
>
> In that Zen has something to say about the self, it may have some bearing
> on this particular discussion. If Zen has not been brought to bear on this
> discussion, that, I think, is mostly a matter of ignorance. Most people in
> memetics aren't familiar with Zen.
>
> William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
> 708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbenzon@mindspring.com
> Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
-- Mario Vaneechoutte Department Clinical Chemistry, Microbiology & Immunology University Hospital De Pintelaan 185 9000 GENT Belgium Phone: +32 9 240 36 92 Fax: +32 9 240 36 59E-mail: Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be
Symposium 'Water and Human Evolution'. April 30th , Ghent, Belgium Information at: http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Programme.html
=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit