Comments on: On Bergson’s Pure Duration and Suzuki’s Sunyata-Tathata http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/on-bergsons-pure-duration-and-suzukis-sunyata-tathata/ A media theory and history blog diagramming how media form assemblages of people, populations, technologies, meanings, and sensations. The evolution of these assemblages, their non-linear dynamics, their affects, and self-organizing capacities are what is explored in these postings. Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:55:15 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: amitsrai http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/on-bergsons-pure-duration-and-suzukis-sunyata-tathata/#comment-537 amitsrai Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:55:15 +0000 http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/?p=35#comment-537 I liked that, Tim, thank you. I think there is an overcoming of both language and concepts in the practices of Zen, or Deleuzian aesthetico-politics. But this overcoming should be thought of as a denial of language or concepts, but a transformation in the habits of the body associated with them. This is why the emphasis (for instance in Varela's Ethical Know-How) on a continuous transformation of patterns of enaction (assembling forms of life through repetitive intensive processes). Anyway, thanks! I liked that, Tim, thank you. I think there is an overcoming of both language and concepts in the practices of Zen, or Deleuzian aesthetico-politics. But this overcoming should be thought of as a denial of language or concepts, but a transformation in the habits of the body associated with them. This is why the emphasis (for instance in Varela’s Ethical Know-How) on a continuous transformation of patterns of enaction (assembling forms of life through repetitive intensive processes). Anyway, thanks!

]]> By: Tim http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/on-bergsons-pure-duration-and-suzukis-sunyata-tathata/#comment-536 Tim Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:53:03 +0000 http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/?p=35#comment-536 I enjoyed your post. I thought I'd venture to extrapolate one of your phrases, regarding time in eternity: "The (non)aim would be a kind of motionless duration, echoing with a future that will only ever remain potential." I think the loss of subjectivity is key to this notion. As I understand it, we experience ourselves conventionally as standing anchors in time, which allows us to contrast present effects with past causes. In Zen then, with the loss of self as the stable anchor, all that can initially be said to be experienced is change. But a dialectical reverse occurs simultaneously: if there is no permanent self, there can be no notion of change. If everything is in flux, this amounts to no change whatsoever – there being no fixed standpoint from which to characterise change. In thus revealing their conceptual interdependence, neither can be said to apply in the final analysis. Therein lies the limits of language, resulting in the apophatic or 'via negativa' writings of mystics. Not this, not that! Neti neti. Keep it up! I enjoyed your post. I thought I’d venture to extrapolate one of your phrases, regarding time in eternity:

“The (non)aim would be a kind of motionless duration, echoing with a future that will only ever remain potential.”

I think the loss of subjectivity is key to this notion. As I understand it, we experience ourselves conventionally as standing anchors in time, which allows us to contrast present effects with past causes. In Zen then, with the loss of self as the stable anchor, all that can initially be said to be experienced is change. But a dialectical reverse occurs simultaneously: if there is no permanent self, there can be no notion of change. If everything is in flux, this amounts to no change whatsoever – there being no fixed standpoint from which to characterise change. In thus revealing their conceptual interdependence, neither can be said to apply in the final analysis.

Therein lies the limits of language, resulting in the apophatic or ‘via negativa’ writings of mystics. Not this, not that! Neti neti.

Keep it up!

]]> By: amitsrai http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/on-bergsons-pure-duration-and-suzukis-sunyata-tathata/#comment-31 amitsrai Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:28:22 +0000 http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/?p=35#comment-31 I think I see what you mean here. But what has been the ongoing struggle with language, representation, and symbolization? The first thing has been to break with the binary notion of the sign. That was to think outside of Saussurean linguistics, toward something more pragmatic (Pierce) and embodied (Nietzsche). But Bergson is suggesting something even more radical about language, to wit: all conceptualization is a remove from lived duration, which happens before and to the side of symbolical representation. There is a way to experience symbolical representation which returns intensity to it, but that is after, after the fact of its capture! I think I see what you mean here. But what has been the ongoing struggle with language, representation, and symbolization? The first thing has been to break with the binary notion of the sign. That was to think outside of Saussurean linguistics, toward something more pragmatic (Pierce) and embodied (Nietzsche). But Bergson is suggesting something even more radical about language, to wit: all conceptualization is a remove from lived duration, which happens before and to the side of symbolical representation. There is a way to experience symbolical representation which returns intensity to it, but that is after, after the fact of its capture!

]]> By: KRishna http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/on-bergsons-pure-duration-and-suzukis-sunyata-tathata/#comment-30 KRishna Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:53:06 +0000 http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/?p=35#comment-30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n2VSe_lja4 link to Kate Bush's "Breathing" video recommend full screen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n2VSe_lja4

link to Kate Bush’s “Breathing” video

recommend full screen

]]> By: KRishna http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/on-bergsons-pure-duration-and-suzukis-sunyata-tathata/#comment-29 KRishna Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:38:50 +0000 http://mediaecologiesresonate.wordpress.com/?p=35#comment-29 "in place of the doing we put the already done ; and, as we have begun by, so to speak, stereotyping the activity of the self, we see spontaneity settle down into inertia and freedom into necessity. Thus, any positive definition of freedom will ensure the victory of determinism" (yesssssss) Eye are a mobius strip. I am not sure about Suzuki's definition of concept and simmering to symb. rep. (what is the relation between zen and more traditional buddhism in regards to symbols?) Either way...maybe OUR problem, if there is one, is that we have thought symbolical representation into a corner (why?) and taken away its own duration. WHy limit the power of symbols? Why intellectually limit the power of anything? What do we know about symbols? Symbols are like everything else, meaning "spirit" can slip through them. There is nothing that spirit, or ki, or chi, or universal life force, or god, cannot move through. Save for maybe our own crystallized thoughts which become a blockage. And always if we try to see, it is trying to seep through that too. I think you've taught me that anything has the potential for positive use, negative use. Symbols are no different. They can be used to connect with the universal life force (duration?), indeed are used to great effect. But maybe I am limiting your concepts and creating my own thought crystal? Flow flow flow, breathe, breathe, breathe. (breathing conciously reinforces our mobius stripness) “in place of the doing we put the already done ; and, as we have begun by, so to speak, stereotyping the activity of the self, we see spontaneity settle down into inertia and freedom into necessity. Thus, any positive definition of freedom will ensure the victory of determinism”

(yesssssss)

Eye are a mobius strip.

I am not sure about Suzuki’s definition of concept and simmering to symb. rep. (what is the relation between zen and more traditional buddhism in regards to symbols?)

Either way…maybe OUR problem, if there is one, is that we have thought symbolical representation into a corner (why?) and taken away its own duration. WHy limit the power of symbols? Why intellectually limit the power of anything? What do we know about symbols? Symbols are like everything else, meaning “spirit” can slip through them. There is nothing that spirit, or ki, or chi, or universal life force, or god, cannot move through. Save for maybe our own crystallized thoughts which become a blockage. And always if we try to see, it is trying to seep through that too.

I think you’ve taught me that anything has the potential for positive use, negative use. Symbols are no different. They can be used to connect with the universal life force (duration?), indeed are used to great effect.

But maybe I am limiting your concepts and creating my own thought crystal? Flow flow flow, breathe, breathe, breathe. (breathing conciously reinforces our mobius stripness)

]]>