Earlier today, I was reading an essay by Jayarava Attwood on a Buddhist concept and came across this line:
"Real and unreal are not qualities that can be imputed to experience."
I've been turning that over in my head ever since. I think there's something very important in that observation.
@AndyLowry The ontology of experience is tricky even now, let alone in the Iron Age, eh?
BTW I appreciate your enthusiasm for my writing more than I can possibly say, which may be why I haven't said more. 🙏
@jayarava
How could anyone NOT be enthusiastic, provided that they're of that smallish population that might be interested in the subject matter to begin with? I mean, just look at it! If I'd written just, say, the three-parter on emptiness and the other writings on just that topic, I'd be satisfied with that as a magnum opus and toddle off to do something else. 😃 But that was (I'm not going to do the actual math, just making an informed guess) a fewn thousandths of your output, and all of it well-researched with citations for every claim or assertion. This latter has been useful to me too, as I've been introduced to other writers in the field that I hadn't known existed.
I can sense the effort that's been put into every page. It's not like it can all just effortlessly pour out of you like a Stevie Ray Vaughan solo. That you do it for the love of it, for its own sake, is a source of astonishment for me, especially considering that it's done in the face of being ignored by the "big names" in the field, you know, the people who actually get paid to do that kind of work half as well as you do. 😆
And I know I'm not alone in appreciating your work, though it might look like it in this particular venue. I've seen lengthy discussions of you and your work elsewhere, so it's not like I'm just a fan club of one like Mel on The Conchords. 😉 Not that it would matter if I were, the importance of your work is self-evident.
@jayarava
And a 🙏 back atcha!
As in the realization that all we have to go on is whatever our interface tells us. And sometimes that interface flat-out lies, like how it smooths out visual input by filling in missing parts on its own. I'd already known about that, but hadn't thought about it from the angle of having nothing fully reliable to rest on.