Kindly Bent to Ease Us II: V. 2 by Herbert V. Guenther

Author:Herbert V. Guenther
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dharma Publishing
Published: 1976-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

Such communication takes on the character of a personal relationship between man and his environment. It becomes 'anthropomorphic' in the sense that nature not only speaks to man, be it in a friendly or hostile, gentle or stern, reassuring or threatening way, but is also spoken to and 'acted upon' in the same manner. Thus feelings of calmness, expansion, powerfulness, severity and oppressiveness, which some places may inspire, are the direct experience of the working of the self-realizing and self-organizing creative unity of man and world, the 'Buddha overall intentionality' within and through each of us, a totality that is inclusive in not having a subject-world dichotomy and is a timeless now-and-here.

This experience comes to us in images of 'gods' or 'goddesses', of malignant demons or enchanting nymphs, and through the appreciation of these images we gain knowledge about the features of, for example, a place or an object. Images are kinds of thought, exhibiting the same intentionality as thought and being known as immediately as thoughts. In effect, then, this knowledge about certain features has two dimensions: one of thought, and one of experience. As thought it may be expressed in a propositional construction; as experience it may be paraphrased as being the sensory 'embodiment' of what otherwise is merely a'thought'. We may'think of'a place as having a languorous atmosphere and express it in the appropriate proposition, but we may also 'experience' this languorousness as an enchantress-alluring, charming and fascinating-the sensuous and sensual 'embodiment' of our thoughts.

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