Investigations 1

Not to clear the mind
the mind can have pleasant clouds

By what regression or return do literal thoughts entail themselves, without speaking of life?

Thoughts are sometimes a series of excuses. The first thought may even be an excuse for excuses to be relavent. Although this sounds embarrassing or condemning, it explains the character of futility that pervades many lines of reasoning.

It seems useful to bear in mind at this point that although it is important to return to a particular thought as a means of reference, a process of thinking that repeatedly returns is not necessarily a circular argument; very often arguments are accretiative, benefiting from an idea that lingers to the extent that it participates givingly in the process as a repeated motif.

It is easy to jump into broad categories in determining or abandoning determination towards the context for a line of reasoning. The starting point for metaphorical tools may as easily be existential identifications with the attributes of animals as it is a systematic method or code abstracted from experience.

Because of this difficulty it seems reasonable to be hesitant in beginning, to the extent that I may determine to investigate while withholding the intention to provide a foundation for excuses. The clear advantage of this is that even lacking what might pass for cogency, the process itself is more thorough and meandering, such that the landscape as I see it is in a real sense recognized; not mistaken as one class of thing, or a thing that is innately known or unknown. Indeed, the frequent insistence of human inadequacy in approaching free-will, practicality, and death express that this is the only path to follow; life already is trumped by so many hazards, it cannot claim to know the path.

Thus what I intend to address is the place in which I find myself, as I consider the intentions of thought. By observing the intentions it becomes clearer that there is a landscape of what might be considered or believed. Although it is difficult to see this place as anything other than material, it is not realized except through a thoughtful process within which one might say “material is material”. If one is unwilling to accept that there is a material reality, it is difficult to see the reality of things equally real, or equally significant, or more living that do not share the properties of hardness, heat, or dullness (ostensibly, properties of matter).

Then it is important, first, to recognize the mind as a participant. The brain may need sensations detached from the world; it is easy to overthink an object seen with the eye, yet part of this is the failure to see the object as an expression of numerous combined potentials. If awareness lacks feeling it may be a simple attachment to dull simple qualities of experience. There is an advantage to dull simple qualities; the brain is insensitive, you could imagine poking it with a knife and you wouldn’t feel a thing. To overcome that kind of fear is to recognize there is a huge gamut of sensations that are too often unavailable. Yet the choice at this point would be to ignore thought, or to work with the materials given. Refining tools is not only about testing oneself, but also entails an engagement to experiences participating with one’s own inner limits and strengths.