[Buddha-l] Accuracy

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 16-06-10 12:04, Dan Lusthaus schreef:
> Let's complicate the picture -- there is a speaker. There is the speaker's
> utterance(s). There is an audience (lit. means "hearers", "sraavakas),
> composed of a multiplicity of ears and minds who don't necessarily hear the
> same things in the same ways. There is that about which the speaker speaks
> (a state of affairs?). There are the personal and collective experiences of
> the audience, which may or may not overlap with each other, or with the
> speaker's experiences, and may or may not have had prior or current
> encounters with the same or similar states of affairs. There are the
> ambiguities that language usage brings to any communication between people.
> We could extend this list. Each of these is subject to multiple
> interpretations.
>    
In this you need what is usually translated as 'skilfull means' and what 
Aristotle called 'rhetorics'.
>
> Due to the ambiguity of language -- and perhaps my lack of clarity --
>    
How about 'due to the clarity of language and my lack of ambiguity' ? 
Perhaps being less accurate helps to get your meaning across more 
clearly. Accuracy is very good when you plan to bring a satellite into 
orbit, but when describing people's intentions you may just be saying 
too much. By not being accurate you let others interpretate for 
themselves, you only have to send them in the right direction.
> One thing Richard is dead right about: I do love the word "accuracy."
>    
It's worse: you love the meaning as well. Perhaps it are your German roots.
> Any activity that brings clarity about what is the case, brings one closer
> to seeing yatha-bhuta, things just as they are. Accuracy. That, for me, is
> what Buddhism is about.
>    
Buddhism also has it's Dionysian sides. I used to read tantric texts and 
I loved the chaos, what Roland Barthes called 'the pleasure of the text' .
>    
>> >  If
>> >  we would get angry or upset about it, we wouldn't be mindful or have an
>> >  empty mind, we also would forget all about compassion and wisdom and we
>> >  would speak like an extremist. Why don't we try to stop these people and
>> >  give them what they need? They just need sympathy and respect, and then
>> >  also some good education.
>>      
> In fact, many of them are highly educated. (Education seems to increase
> rather than decrease the likelihood of extremist behavior, contrary to the
> popular sociological myth: Aum Shin Rikyo, the 9/11 hijackers, Bin Laden.
> student movements... [pace Marx, the revolutions have come from the
> intellectual elites, not the peasants]; perhaps a subject for another day.
> Mythbusting is hard on this list.)
>    
I had the honour of discussing this with late Arne Naess and he 
mentioned the difference between wisdom and knowledge. An education that 
only brings knowledge is not very good.
> What do you think of Karl Popper? Did you know he is popular in certain
> quarters in Iran?
>    
Thanks, very interesting. Check out the website of Soroush.
http://www.drsoroush.com/English.htm

erik