POSTHUMOUS PIECES : PART II


SENTIENCE




The Buddha forebode to specify:
as long as there is any 'one' to suffer - he will.




Chapter 23 : Should not this be Said? ...


Must not this be said? Can it be said with sufficient finality? How may it be stated with a force and conviction that leave no room for even a shadow of equivocation?

As long as an apparent individual thinks, as long as he is speaking, acting, or cognising, as an autonomous entity, self-identified as such psychically and somatically, can such a pyscho-somatic apparatus so-acting be qualified to understand what it is?

Can a psyche-soma, presuming its factual existence to be what is sensorially apparent and intellectually cognisable, be capable of knowing, and so of saying, anything significant or accurate concerning its fundamental nature?

Otherwise expressed, can anybody who is still thinking of himself as a 'self', speaking and acting as such, be comprehending the essential error in consequence of which everything so being thought and said must of necessity be erroneous also?

More concisely, can anything of metaphysical import, that 'anyone' says, thinking and speaking as, by, and from a supposedly autonomous entity, be anything but arrant nonsense?

This idea does not necessarily imply that only a fully disidentified sage can say anything pertinent; it means that anything pertinent can only be said by or via a psycho-somatic apparatus whose cognition is intuitional and immediate, based on impersonal perception, and on a clear understanding of the origin of what is then functioning.

So why 'must this be said'? In order that the essential understanding may break through, and that we may know ourselves for what we are and for what we are not.


Note: Such a statement may be not only disagreeable to read, but is likely to hurt the feelings of sensitive and well-intentioned readers who believe they know a great deal about these matters, and who indeed may 'know' a great deal, perhaps considerably more than the writer of these lines. But, if that be so, it is itself a valid reason for such a statement and, if it has not been made heretofore, the present writer must share the accusation of cowardice that may be presumed to be responsible.

General statements have indeed been made, such as 'Everything we say must necessarily be untrue' - and everyone is delighted, almost flattered, but then everyone is involved and hardly anyone takes it seriously! Such a general assessment is even more profoundly true, but does it help anybody and does it serve any immediate purpose? in order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is liable to hurt.


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'Objective existence is only a notion',
(And surely somewhat fatuous at that?)
Why so?
All 'existing' is objective
And there is no one, and no 'thing', to exist.
Is not this the whole, the sufficient, the ultimate truth?
Can we know any other?


(© T.J. Gray, 1968)
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