Books

An Unlearning MindMap – Honoring the Emptiness

Posted by piermarton on May 29, 2016
Posted in: Books, Culture, Death, Graphics, Insights, LifeAfter, Tips.

– from the School of No Media site –

In parallel to the Chinese Yin and Yang principles, our digital reality is composed binary digits – the bits – composed of ones and zeros, yet our culture seems to emphasize only the ones, only the fullness
— at the expense of our emptiness —

As per the hourglass visualization, the clarifying process of decantation takes time, yet dramatic events like death or disease can speed up the unlearning phase.
Regardless of our books, our words and our philosophies, death – the so-called “great equalizer” – will create an outstanding silence.
What traces will be treasured by the next generation?

An Unlearning MapThe essence of normalcy is the refusal of reality. Ernst Becker

Stop-Look-Go & The Given Moment: Brother Steindl-Rast’s Lesson in Gratefulness

Posted by piermarton on November 6, 2014
Posted in: Books, Culture, Delirium, Humor, ICU, Insights, LifeAfter, LifeBefore, OtherSupport, Rehab, Tips.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, A Network of Grateful Living (ANG*L) and his many books!

Br. Steindl-Rast, against solidification:
The religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth …and then …the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it’s just rocks. You’d never guess that there was fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that’s within it. — During Link TV’s Lunch With Bokara 2005 episode The Monk and the Rabbi.

Beyond Speech & Language (Au delà du language)

Posted by piermarton on July 28, 2012
Posted in: Books, Insights, LifeAfter, TheMindChallenge.

Even if some of us are lucky enough to be able to speak and be understood, silence looms over all of us.

In that sense the words of Fernand Deligny, the French writer/educator who specialized in autistic children and was read attentively by Deleuze, have a particular resonance:

Le language nest pas innocent. Le moindre mot a une densité idéologique dont on ne se rends même pas compte quand on l’emploie.
Il nous enferme dans une convention dont l’histoire-même nous échappe et qui nous semble toute naturelle.
Le language tends a prendre sans cesse le pouvoir absolu.
L’humain est ce qui échappe au language.

Language is not innocent. The smallest word has an ideological density that hides itself as it is used.
It traps us into a convention whose history escapes us and appears completely natural.
Language has a relentless tendency to seek absolute power.
The human is what escapes language.
(my translation)

A Challenged Self Hears U.G. Krishnamurti

Posted by piermarton on February 22, 2012
Posted in: Books, BrainScience, Insights, LifeAfter, LifeBefore, TheMindChallenge.

What U.G. Krishnamurti (not the famous one) said over and over in his books already made a lot of sense before my surgery.

Now, would anyone be able to hear what he said, it would save a lot of my efforts in explaining the particular distance I started describing in my earlier posts (Brecht, Herzog…).

If you are willing to enter his realm – not a matter of arguing with him – there are many texts/sites that could challenge your self.
U.G.
The two main sites:

U.G.Krishnamurti.org
&
U.G.Krishnamurti.Net

And books (composed primarily of interviews):

My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.
–U.G.